The Ego Massage Generation

The Setting: Do you feel obligated to accept someone’s friendship request on Facebook just because they offered it?

Or connect with someone on LinkedIn because they sent a request? Or follow someone on Twitter because they’re following you? Or connect with anyone on any other social networking tool out there, just because they asked?

I have had this conversation with a few of my friends and many are having these same thoughts. For some people, it really is about quantity and not necessarily about quality. It's a competition – who can get the most connections. Is it just massaging your ego if you have more friends, connections, links, followers, minions than anyone else? Is it about connecting with as many people as possible, is it about the networking?

Speaking specifically about Facebook, I admit I have accepted friend requests from people who are friends of my brother (I at least knew who they were), people I don't really know but we belong to the same organization or professional group, and people who are friends of friends.

I have three friends requests on my Facebook account right now. One is a friend suggestion from someone who thought I might know the person. I don’t. One is from someone I went to high school with whose name sounds vaguely familiar but I know she was not someone I hung out with. The last is from someone I did know in high school and although we were not enemies, I don’t have the best memories of our relationship. Why is it so important for them to be friends with me? Because I am so amazing? Perhaps. Who can blame them, really? I'll keep ya posted.

Facebook Turns Five

The Setting: The social networking site Facebook is five years old today.

It was started in 2004 by then 19-year-old Mark Zuckerberg, and now he's a millionaire. Oh wait, I meant billionaire. Although, according to this article, no one's really sure how Facebook is making money, other than through advertising. Really doesn't matter. Dude's rich.

I resisted signing up for the longest time. My impression was that it was something like MySpace, which I thought of as a site for a bunch of 13 year olds and a bunch of pervs pretending to be 13 years old. I thought of Facebook as something for college students, but my brother convinced me to sign up after I looked at his FB page. That was back in August 2008. Since then, I have connected with a bunch of friends, including a couple from high school; I have found (and been found by) old co-workers; and I am FB friends with many current co-workers. I have friends and family all over the place who, I admit, I don't see or talk to on the phone as often as I would like but it is very easy and fast to communicate with them on a regular basis using FB.

Some people use the site for business, although most I know use it to stay connected with friends and family. Some people post their statuses so often, you feel like a fly on the wall of their lives, watching the whole thing unfold. FB works really well for posting photos and creating albums, which is one of the main things people with kids do so their families living elsewhere can see pics of the kiddies. There are countless applications you can add to your page (I like Sudoku), altough many people choose not to add any apps.