I’m on Twitter and Facebook, and I finally caved to a LinkedIn invite. I have hundreds of Twitter followers, a couple hundred Facebook friends, and I’m sure sooner rather than later I’ll have dozens of people adding me to their LinkedIn networks.
But being friends with a thousand people and spamming their social media accounts so you can get something out of them isn’t really “social”, is it? If the only reason you’re my Facebook friend is because you want virtual wagon wheels for your virtual wagon in an online game, does the word “friend” even really apply?
I’ve decided I need a major pruning in my social media tree. Like many other things, this first required a mental adjustment.
Let me share the high points of that adjustment with you.
It Doesn’t Matter If I Knew Them From School
I went to a high school with two thousand people. Many of them knew who I was. I was friends with maybe a dozen people, max. Now factor in that I didn’t stay friends with everybody from high school after I graduated.
That means there are about 1,995 people from a school of 2,000 that I really have no inherent reason to be friends with on Facebook, because we’re not actually friends.
These are people that I wouldn’t recognize if I saw them at the store. I couldn’t get them to come give me a jump-start if my car battery died. If I called them on the phone to tell them about my day, they’d likely hang up on me.
These people aren’t really my friends. If that ever changes, that’ll be awesome – but for now I don’t need to see what they’re doing every minute of every day.
It Doesn’t Matter If They’re Nice People
I replied to a friend’s post about problems at the local animal shelter one day, and had a nice conversation with her and about five other people.
Shortly after that, some of the other people started sending me friend requests. I added them, because they seemed like nice enough people.
Then it happened.
My timeline was literally flooded with posts about animal shelters, irresponsible breeders, breed rescues, and a million other similar things. These people apparently have a life goal of changing the face of animal shelters nationwide.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s an admirable goal. It’s a goal that I think would change the world in a positive way. But it’s not something I’m seriously passionate about, at least partly because I can’t get anywhere near an actual animal shelter without having nasty allergic reactions.
Their interests and mine don’t intersect, so I unfriended them. It’s not a matter of judging them; it’s a matter of “I don’t need to see everything going on in their lives”.
It Doesn’t Matter If They’re Family
I have uncles and cousins that I haven’t talked to in years. They don’t call me, and I don’t call them. This is a subset of the second point – their interests and mine just don’t intersect.
It Actually Doesn’t Even Matter If You’re Friends
I have at least a couple people that I’d call friends in real life that I absolutely won’t interact with online. If the person you like to hang out with on Friday nights is a complete jerk on Facebook, there’s no reason to drown in their jerkiness on a daily basis.
That’s what the “unfriend” button is for.
The Only Thing That Matters Is Meaningful Interaction
I’ve decided that the gold standard has to be meaningful interaction. This leads to a few very basic questions:
- Am I friends with this person in real life?
- Do we interact meaningfully online?
- Are their updates meaningful to me?
The Great UnFriending Of 2012
Spending fifteen minutes evaluating each of your social media circles can save you both time and stress in the future. I don’t think I have to explain how you’d do this; you know the drill already.
I can tell you that when I did this with just Facebook, I managed to cut about fifty people. I plan to do it again in about a month, since it’ll give me time to focus on the people that are left and do some more thinking.
I can also tell you that being able to focus on the people that really matter is a good feeling.
I’m curious about your experiences. Have you done a serious pruning of your online friends list? If so, what were the results? If not, why not? Let me know in the comments!