I have been on Facebook since January of 2007 according to my timeline. It also says I got married on July 20, 2007 so we know we can’t trust all the information coming from there! I have loved being able to be in touch with so many people that I’ve known throughout my life. I would have never dreamed it possible six years ago!
As I blunder through real life sticking my foot in my mouth and offending people unintentionally, so too on Facebook. In the beginning of my Facebook experience I was so happy to find old friends. I actually added people as a friend on Facebook because I was interested in getting reacquainted with them and wondered how their life had changed since the last time I saw them. Occasionally, after finding someone, I would message them and write on their wall and then never hear back. I found that irritating! What was the point of Facebook if we weren’t going to communicate? So…can you see where this is going? I would routinely go through the list and unfriend those who hadn’t responded! I had no idea how personal people took unfriending them on Facebook! I cringe when I think of all those people I unfriended!
I never took friending on Facebook that seriously, so I naturally didn’t realize how others did. I don’t pay attention to how many “friends” I have on there and wouldn’t notice if I’ve lost a few. For some reason though I saw that I had been unfriended by a gal from church. I didn’t know her well, but she was one of my kid’s teachers. I found myself wondering why. Did I offend her? Did she not like me? Did my status updates annoy her? These questions went through my mind before I stopped and listened to my thoughts? What did it really matter? I hardly knew this lady from church anyway and who knows how long I had been “unfriended” before I realized it. Crazy that it should bother me, but it was a little taste of how other people must feel.
I am much more cautious now about the whole process, but I still unfriend people on occasion. 1. Anyone posting adult content is deleted whether they be friend, foe, or family member! I don’t want to see that nor do I want my family who sees my account to see it. 2. Those who send multiple game requests a day. I like getting Facebook notifications on my phone for personal messages, but unfortunately they include all of the game requests as well. I used to play games on Facebook so I understand the fun of it, but I am significantly annoyed to get notifications every few minutes that are game related. I don’t know; there may be a simpler answer for this one, but I haven’t found one. 3. Someone ranting at me or about me on Facebook. I find it’s always the person that’s never or hardly communicated with me on Facebook, but one day they don’t like something I said and they unleash their vengeance. Really? Not in my house. DELETE! 😉
(Okay here is an update that I copied from a friend’s Facebook status: “If you don’t want to see any of the posts I like or comment on, please go to my timeline and hover over the “friend” button which will give you a list of options, then click “settings” then uncheck “comments & likes” or any other activity you may not want to have show up on your news feed.” I will be doing this. By the way I only deleted one person because of the unceasing game notifications. I was getting them every few minutes all day long!)
How do you take or handle unfriending?
Your kid’s teacher probably unfriended you because she didn’t want you to see her pics where she rode a mechanical bull over spring break. It’s never us, it’s always them 😉
Well, I do have FB, but I only have it because I wanted to keep in touch with my nieces. However, they are rarely on it, so I don’t really go on it, either. (They are my only friends.)
When I was really into FB, I wasn’t the least bit concerned with unfriending people and how it made them feel. This is not real life. I find it irritating that if I want to be your real life friend, I have to be your FB friend as well. And, I hate that it causes real life trouble. I think that’s just absolutely ridiculous.
I’m also not afraid to deny friend requests. I ran into some women at our local gym one time that went to high school with my brother. That afternoon, I had a friend request from one of them. Are you kidding me? I’ve never spoken a word to her before in my life. But because we know who each other is, it must be the right thing to be FB friends. Uh – no thanks.
But as far as you unfriending people who don’t communicate with you – I agree that what’s the point of being FB friends if you aren’t going to communicate with each other? It makes no sense. There are so many people who are just friend collectors. They will friend anyone just to gain another friend. My niece is one of them. I saw someone I knew on her friends list and asked her how she knew him. She had no idea who I was talking about.
Sad at it is – grown ups behave this way as well (my niece is 18).
I also unfriend those posting questionable content or who are negative all the time. I do a lot more hiding than unfriending. I can hide posts & forget it & not have to worry about offending people.
Oh, those game requests!
I used to play a game or two on there, but I hardly have time anymore. I just ignore them all. But I don’t have a phone that gives me those notifcations; it’s easier to ignore them when on a computer.
Well, since I avoid facebook, I’m not too much help. I am only really on there so I can get free coupons from companies who only post those coupons on facebook. Once in a while I get curious and pop on to see who is on there and what they may be up to (if they have an open profile, that is). But really, there are people who have sent friend requests who weren’t nice back in the day. What good would it do to friend them, only to find that they are still not so nice?
I read recently that we really need to be careful with social media too. Sometimes God removes people from our lives and through social media we are bringing not only them, but all the junk that God may have removed with them, back into out lives. This is not the reason that I am not really on facebook, but I thought it was an interesting thought nonetheless.
I’m so uninformed, I don’t even know how to “unfriend.” I just hide what I don’t like. I’m not sure what I did, but at some point I quit getting game requests, which pleases me very much. Nothing against games, but I’m not really a game person and I don’t have time. Sometimes I wish I got more information about what is happening to people I care about and fewer pictures and posters, but I don’t want to complain because I really like some of them. I decided to turn off the little ding on my phone that tells me every time anyone posts anything since I will see it when I check the computer (about once a day). It loads too slow and is too hard to read on the phone anyway.
I don’t have FaceBook….I guess I’m ol’fashioned….I prefer to communicate with my “friends” and family members via telephone, email, snail mail, or in person.
To not get game requests, block all game requests. I’ve blocked them one by one, so I hardly ever get a game request.
I haven’t had the problem of people saying mean things on Facebook, at least not that I know of. 🙂 I have seen how others bad mouth, especially their exs, and I think it’s really sad. There has only been one time that I thought I was having a friendly theological discussion, when I offended a friend. I didn’t realize I had been offensive until the not so nice comments started coming. I apologized profusely and have been much more careful in my discussions since then. Had it been a face to face conversation I would have read the signs of anger and miscommunication much earlier. Oh well, try though I might, I still end up saying the wrong thing. Such is life I suppose!
Yes, such is life!
I’ve only unfriended someone once – my younger brother’s ex-girlfriend. The relationship just did not end well and she had really treated him badly and been quite rude to all of us so we decided it would be best for all of us to distance ourselves. If we hadn’t, she probably would have.
I’ve gotten what I call “the dirty delete” from a couple of people. Usually people who have some kind of drama situation so they go kind of crazy and un-friend a bunch of people. In those situations I know it’s not a reflection on me, it’s a reflection of something going on inside of them.
Honestly, I think sometimes Facebook loses our friends. As in they drop off for no reason. I have had to re-friend people that I know I never un-friended.
I wonder how reliable Facebook really is… and seeing that they have your anniversary date wrong, makes me wonder even more!
Really, I am hardly ever on Facebook for my personal page. I basically just use it as a way to be in touch with my blog readers. KWIM?
Ive been thinking that I need to purge my list! It’s not as easy as it sounds though for me. Most on my friend list are just acquaintances, some of which I hope to influence for Christ, others have some connection with my kids and their posts often tell me a lot about their character, others I follow to keep up to date with current events or news/information of interest, etc. So I have all those different types of “friends”, but most are just acquaintances. I’m thinking it might be best if I categorize my list, but that would take some time😕
I know many people categorize and that may be a good solution. I’ve never done that though.