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Social networking sites, friends, and acquaintances


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I should've came to this conclusion sooner but social networking sites don't distinguish between friends and acquaintances.

 

The eye-opening moment came to me today as I went on facebook to confirm a friend request......only find out when I took a look at her facebook page that I just became her 789th friend. My first reaction was, 789?! No way, that many friends?! But then I thought that facebook doesn't distinguish between friends and acquaintances.

 

In my mind, this person was most definitely an acquaintance. We were in the same class, she's one of those "I get along with everyone" kind of people, we don't talk much with each other, had a good laugh or two when we talk, but that's the extent of our interaction.

 

Looking at my own page, I'm approaching 70 friends and starting to feel more and more distance between the person I'm adding and myself. As in, the first people I added were my close circle of friends as compared to the this last person who I added who is most definitely an acquaintance.

 

2 thinks:

1. What do you think of social networking sites blurring down the line between friends and acquaintance? Is this bad thing? Good thing?

 

2. If you're on a social networking site, how would you break down the ratio between friends and acquaintance?

 

As for me (roughly):

Close circle of friends: 10%

Outer circle of friends: 65%

Acquaintances: 25%

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You forgot the "People I don't know, never met, and never will meet but they are my friends on facebook" category.

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Well, I think most people who have a large number of "friends" have not actually met many of those "friends" and they probably have not even contacted all of them.

 

For some it's a game to see how many friends they can get on those sites, and some just add every person they see who shares a common interest.

 

I doubt that your friend is actually friends or acquaintances with all 789 of those people.

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Yeah, I've heard about people who's just there to pile up as many "friends" as possible.

 

I don't know. On the one hand, it's probably not the most correct thing to do to add someone as a facebook friend after you've met them once. But on the other hand, since it is after all networking, perhaps it's not wrong to "pile" people up just in case you might need them in the future.

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