FRIENDS, FACEBOOK, COUNTRYMEN!

The BBC has highlighted a interesting point thrown up by the arrival of Google+ and its comparisons with Facebook. Specifically, the difference (or lack thereof) between friends and acquaintances.

To be honest, I don’t use Google+, but I’m a big fan of Mark Zuckerberg’s baby. It allows me to stay in touch with a variety of people, from old school friends to family living abroad, with whom I would otherwise probably have no contact at all.

But despite what Facebook says, are they all my ‘friends’? No, not really. At a rough estimate, I’d say a third or more of my Facebook friends are acquaintances only. But when I update my status, they all see it. That’s probably why I shy away from anything personal and tend to focus my updates on entertainment: abysmal puns, gratuitous surrealism and the latest news on my ongoing efforts to enslave and/or destroy humanity.

It’s an interesting point. Much has been made about how people divvy up their social networks – supposedly for most people it’s LinkedIn for business contacts, Twitter for anyone and everyone and Facebook for friends and family.

But I wonder if that’s true anymore. Some people actually measure themselves by the number of friends they have on Facebook, which means they’re bound not to know everyone that well. And then they wonder why their banal status updates lead to dozens of ‘de-friendings’. There’s something to be said for everyone looking through their Friend List and pruning it: maybe those who are left are just acquaintances, but at least they’re acquaintances you’ve chosen.