Who do you friend on Facebook? Or connect with on LinkedIn?
I find myself looking at the suggested connections in those apps and thinking, "Oh yeah, I totally know that person. But do they remember me? Will I look too needy if I friend them? I never post anything and my picture is, like, 3 years old. I should wait and get my social media shit together and then connect with all these people. You know, when I'm all together and have something interesting to say and might pretend to be fabulous. Like that guy I used to work with who is batshit crazy but whose photo is of himself mountain climbing. Surely I could come up with something remotely noteworthy like that."
And then I don't connect.
I'm not one to collect friends simply so I can say I have a lot of connections. But I also realize that the time to really think about this is not a Monday night when I worked until 7 and came home and immediately put on my pajamas and ate a gajillion peanut M&Ms because it had been That Kind of Day. And with that sort of, well, awesomeness, who would want to connect with me anyway? I'm not sharing the M&Ms.
But seriously. What's your Facebook / LinkedIn modus operandi?
I only "friend" people who ask me...and I don't "friend" my relatives or former students--they can be my fans on facebook (haha!) I have accepted friend requests from people I know IRL and have been really surprised at how much I despise them online (their updates are lame or offensive). I think the fact that I set up an account is enough. I think I might be part hermit now that I read what I just wrote.
ReplyDeleteI pretty much accept anyone who asks me, but I rarely ask anyone myself. And then I end up blocking people's updates a lot. That's probably bad.
ReplyDeleteI won't face. I refuse. I just think it's a big spy game and popularity contest, and the very questions you ask are exactly why I think people should refrain from using facebook at all. For some, it's a race to have the most friends. For others, it's a place to record every minute movement they make. And for others, it's a place to slam people and cause big problems. I live in the town where I grew up, so I always figure if anyone from school really wanted to find me, they woudlnt' have to look all that hard. I teach at our local middle school, I'm active in a lot of things. They can just google me and find me. Having it all out there on facebook just doesn't seem necessary. Sometimes I do think I'm missing out a little, especially when someone says it was on facebook and I'm like 3 weeks behind. But it's not enough of an incentive.
ReplyDeleteLinkedin, no problem. People seem to behave themselves on linkedin and they do keep it work related, so I'm fine with that.
Wow, this comment was much more serious than I meant for it to be. Oops!