Andie Summerkiss

Facebook is ranked second on a survey concerning college student market, before beer and after iPod. By May 2008, it has attracted almost 130 million unique visitors. With seven thousand applications in total (at least a hundred more are created daily), it is the biggest and busiest social network out there. 

I think online social networking has made us undermine the real meaning of friends. I see some pages where members have at least 300 - 500 friends’ profiles. I can say that my page is very sad. Maybe only 30-ish friends. But it is safe to assume that at least 80% of them are my friends. They fall into at least one of the category below : 

Friend : (1) a: one attached to another by affection or esteem b: acquaintance (2) a: one that is not hostile b: one that is of the same nation, party, or group (3): one that favors or promotes something (as a charity) (4): a favored companion  

Merriam-Webster.com

Friend : (1) a person whom you know well and whom you like a lot, but who is usually not a member of your family: (2) someone who is not an enemy and whom you can trust

Cambridge Dictionary

When we add someone in our “page”, it should be for following reasons : 

We do know that person, as in we have engaged in some way or another in the past - either by email, messaging or some ancient-old way such as spent some time in biology lab or english tutorial. 

We would like to know that person, as in we find that person interesting and one day, not so long from now, we plan to send a private message or engaged in some kind of virtual activity that does not involve throwing sheep or kicking-butt.

We use the social networking system, such as Facebook, for the purpose of personal social branding and self-promoting. In that case, the more the merrier! 

I might be old-fashioned, but when I visit my Facebook page, I would like to see my “real” friends, not some random people who I don’t even know, might not even call, not in a million years would meet up. That would make my Facebook kind of like my Fakebook.

Please, this does not mean that I am passing any kind of judgement. Just my personal opinion and observation. So, don’t send me hate mails. 

Do you have any kind of criteria? What do you do when people that you don’t know are asking you to “add” them as “friends”? Do you eventually engage in a virtual or even real relationships with them? Do you “decorate” or “litter” your page with people you don’t know or would you rather have people you love and care about to be in it? Do you see you “page” as your “home” where you have absolute control of what’s in it or do you treat it as a public display of popularity of some sort? How many of us use our page to sell something, be it your persona or products of any kind?