After 29 days of facebooklessness, I'm finding it easier than ever to not be in the loop about every little detail of my friends' lives. You know, its really sort of nice to be out of the loop a little bit and find things out the old fashioned way. Hearing about news through word of mouth just feels better somehow. I don't know how else to explain it. My Facebook cravings have died down to a mere murmur.In the last month, I have discovered several things about Facebook. First and foremost is the realization that Facebook itself is not the problem. I am. Facebook is simply a tool. It has its quirks and issues, to be sure. But the root problem is that I didn’t have a strategy for how to use it.
Like many people, I had begun to use the term “friend” in a very loose way. The first thing I did in re-thinking my strategy was to tighten up my definitions of key terms:
Family: These are the people who are related by blood or by marriage. From now on, I am going to use this word as it was intended.So with those definitions in mind, I have set out to re-think my approach to Facebook. Basically, it’s pretty simple. I have decided that I will only use my Facebook profile for family and close friends. I don’t want an inbox that is flooded with things I don’t care about.
Friends: These are the people I know in real life. They are people I have met face-to-face, enjoy being around, and interact with in real life. (These three elements are key.) I have a few deep and significant friendships. But if I am honest, I don’t have many. I only have so much time available.
Acquaintances: These are people I know through someone else. I may know their name or even their face. We may even have been friends at some point in the past, but we don’t have an ongoing relationship. We only know one another at a superficial level, and that’s just fine. We just have to be clear that these are not our “friends”.
Here is some of the key learning I took away:
You have to understand the difference between family, friends, and acquaintances. If I try to be everyone’s friend, I will be no one’s friend. I must be deliberate and selective. I will probably offend some of the people I unfriend. That’s okay. My sanity and real friends are more important than meeting the expectations of acquaintances. I need to be very careful who I accept as a friend on my profile going forward.
With that in mind I decided to un-friend those on my list that didn’t quite meet the criteria. Just based on mouse clicks, it’s three times as much work to unfriend someone as friend them. In this crazy world of social media, I think we need to remain thoughtful and flexible about how we connect online.
Is it time to re-think your Facebook strategy? What needs to change for you?
Blessings
2 comments:
I just had to spend a bit of time catching up on you. I like what you are sharing here. It helps me feel a bit better about not being on facebook. For me it's just easier to have that excuse and not have to friend or unfriend anyone. From the comments I hear .. the conversations do not sound deep enough to be missing too much. I'm sure I'll find out if I need to and for now I feel it's easier not to know what I'm missing. Blogging alone takes more time that I care to admit. =)
I was off Facebook for just over 4 months and it was so good for me. I'm back now, but in a far smaller capacity.
An unexpected benefit was getting emails from friends that were longer and more in-depth than I ever got on facebook. Such a wonderful benefit that I try to cultivate still despite being back on Facebook.
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