Facebook Friends

Today I noticed that the number of “friends” I had on Facebook was about to pass 1500. 1500! I took a second glance at that and could not believe that the number had gotten so high. Did I really know 1500 people well enough to add/confirm them as a friend on Facebook? Clearly the answer to this question is no. When I scrolled through some friend lists, I began to notice some themes behind which I had become friends with these people. The friends I had on Facebook could be divided into four categories.

True Friends: (33% of friends) This is the obvious category. People I actually am friends with. Family members are included in this category. Home friends, college friends, family members, that’s it.

Friendship requests originated from: mutual


Kind of Friends: (40% of friends)People I maybe had a class with in high school, friends of my brother or sister, or a weirdo who I might want to defriend but I would be too worried about them being insulted. Also a number of people I go to college with that I friended the summer before freshman year. (Everyone seemed to be doing that).

Friendship requests originated from: mutual


Status Friends: (20% of friends) In your professional field, there are always those interesting people you may friend just to be part of their network. So with me being a politics major, I am friends with many politicians, pundits, high-profile people, and people I have added just to network with.

Friendship requests originated from: me


Not Friends: (7% of friends) This is the category of people that I confirmed just because they were too weird to pass up. This person was maybe a person with forty friends, part of an African country’s network, and a profile picture of him and an elephant. These people looked too interesting to reject.

Friendship requests originated from: them


Voyeurism is less of a concern for me since I am now older and also a male. However, with all these friends that I have collected, I feel like my invisible audience has expanded far beyond what is should be. If you consider that 2/3s of my Facebook friends I don’t know well enough to trust, I should begin to correct some of these friendships. How often are these 1500 people looking at my profile? Are these random people looking at my photos or updates? Are they me using my picture for something?

Maybe some defriending is in order.