Comments on: On (NOT) collecting friends on facebook

By: Aki Kuwabara

Aki Kuwabara — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 04:29:51 +0000

Ideasmith – if people cannot offer an explanation for their Friend requests (i.e. how they have become acquainted with or come to know you), then I do not see any reason for you to accept the requests. Like those annoying networkers bent on passing their business cards to anyone within their reach at social events, people with no intent to establish meaningful connection are not worth your attention.

By: Ideasmith

Ideasmith — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 08:23:38 +0000

Right you are about the annoyance. But there are people who just want to connect and don’t always know how to express why I guess. Not that that’s reason enough to accept their Friend requests. But I’m glad we connected – I don’t think we were ever strangers.

By: Nikhil

Nikhil — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 17:03:50 +0000

My apologies for annoying you so much.

By: Jinal Shah

Jinal Shah — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 17:16:29 +0000

You are right about it being a functionality issue with Facebook. How does technology facilitate relationships? And one way it certainly could is by displaying associations and the network effect.

By: Aki Kuwabara

Aki Kuwabara — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 22:51:38 +0000

I have been using facebook since my sophomore year of college in 2004 so I am well-aware of the transformations the site has undergone. The dilemma over accepting those whom you do not know very well (or at all, as the case may be) as your “friends” has existed from the beginning. The least that facebook can do is to assist the users in figuring out whether and how well they know the senders of the friend request: displaying the commonalities in terms of friends, groups, networks, employers, etc. Hopefully facebook will continue to streamline this process to spare us of frustrations and indecisions.

By: Jinal Shah

Jinal Shah — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 17:00:43 +0000

Aki – Facebook was first the home for college kids only and then they opened up their doors. I feel like the early/original inhabitants of fbook view it a different way and the newer, more recent entrants view it more as a connecting/ networking tool. Nothing wrong with either – but when these two perspectives clash, frustrations like mine rise.

I will have to come to a point where I simply hit the ignore switch!

By: Aki Kuwabara

Aki Kuwabara — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 06:02:26 +0000

I don’t know if some people like to feel popular by flaunting the number of friends they have on facebook. They either do not understand that it is the density, not the volume of connections they have that reflects their social relationship, or possess some ulterior motive with their indiscriminate “friending.”