The Case Of The Facebook Frenzy

It all started with Black Planet. When I started college back in 2000 BlackPlanet.Com was the site to sign up to if you wanted to find singles in your area. I dated a few guys through black planet, however once I got married, I quickly forgot about it as it no longer served a purpose in my life at the time.
Then, came Myspace. Everyone would ask me if I had a Myspace Page. I felt like the odd man out, gave in to the pressure and then created a Myspace Page. I soon found lots of family and friends that I hadn't seen or spoken with since childhood. I started blogging and adding music to my page. I was always checking out others pages in search of ideas on how to spruce up my own. Then, in an event that I am sure was gradual but seemed to be sudden everyone was gone. Myspace had become a virtual wasteland, all that was missing was the tumbleweed icons. Most of my friends were never online, never returning my messages, and closing their accounts. After incessant inquiry, I found that the herd had moved on....to Facebook.
Initially, I refused to leave Myspace. I was comfortable! I had learned how to use it efficiently, and I had a pretty snazzy profile page to boot! However the one thing that had been lost was the fun of it. There was no one there to join me in my blogging, or to comment on pics, or to message with. What was I supposed to do without kudo's?! No one gave me kudo's anymore (only true blue former Myspacers would understand this dilemma). So, I decided to follow the herd and I opened a Facebook account. Upon joining Facebook, I was swamped with "friend requests" from all sorts of old friends going back to elementary school. I sifted through several messages congratulating me on joining "the rest of the world" on Facebook. My friend list quickly grew from a meager 15 to an abundant 322. Who has 322 friends? Me, Me, Me! I did! But-- who really has 322 friends? The answer is not many.
After site hopping for the third time I finally realized that I was caught up in a term I have coined as SSFS (Social Site Fad Syndrome). I basically join the hottest social site at the moment and gain superficial friendships to escape my life's reality. What is my reality? I probably have ten or even less friends and maybe 100 acquaintances. All the rest of the world is people I have met before, and left so little impression I haven't bothered to place them in a catagory or haven't met at all.
After being honest with myself, I had to come to terms with the fact that I didn't communicate with most of the people on my friends list on or off Facebook. I also had very little concern for what was going on in their lives. The reality was that most of them were added out of sheer enthusiasm of seeing a familiar face from the past. Sitting next to someone for a school semester in third grade does not make you friends. You are not missing that person, they merely serve as a reminder of THIRD GRADE. Third grade, when things were so very simple. So, in the height of your nostalgia, you hastily wave that stupid arrow over "add friend" and seal your folly with a click. Sometimes the two of you will exchange a note or two and get reacquainted, sometimes not. What is almost certain to happen is that you will not speak to that person by phone or email again. But not to worry, you may visit their page again... to show someone else how awful they have aged, or how great they turned out considering that nasty bout of acne they went through during the pubescent years.
Finally, I grew tired of the farce of Facebook and in a fit of annoyance I began a deleting frenzy of sorts. The deleting process is actually quite tedious, you can only delete one friend at a time. Me being a woman with little patience, I called a friend who also deleted several "friends". I told her of my trouble deleting these people and asked her how she did it. She gave me the grim news that there is no other way, but to delete each friend individually. Facebook has yet to create a "mass deletion" button. She also informed me of her philosophy that Facebook must want the user to "really consider" whether or not they want to delete a friend before actually following through with the act. This may be true. My view is that Facebook is punishing the user for being so rushed in adding hundreds of friends in the first place. The truth most likely is that its one of the last few kinks that its creators and admins have to work out for an otherwise efficient site.
Despite my frustration, the reasoning as to why its so difficult to delete friends is not my concern. My concern is that I added all of these people to begin with.
Maybe each friend request served as a well welcomed ego stroking. I enjoyed having people who wanted to be MY friend (because we all know I'm just that cool). Perhaps, I just like the idea of having so many friends, even if they don't fit the bill (at least in my sense of the definition).
Whatever the reason, as I delete "friend" number sixty of the one hundred that I am giving the axe, I certainly hope that I don't continue this lax behavior on who I form friendships with in my REAL LIFE (you know the one that exists off the net?) The one thing I do know is that unless technology allows us to have delete buttons on our foreheads, its a lot harder to end "friendships" that don't serve their purpose in the real world.
With that being said, can someone tell me about this Twitter thing? .....Just kidding!