Facebook shifts from personal to business - for me at least

I to have made these same cuts to friends that I no longer keep in touch with or talk to. I mainly deleted friends from high school random people that I have met at parties and they have added me as a friend. I have no need to stay in contact with them because I hardly know them. I see people with more than a 1,000 friends and over 1,000 picture which is cool more power to them, they're a very likable person it looks like, but do they actually know every single one of those people that they have as friends? Within this past year I deleted my facebook for about seven months and realized I had a lot more time than I thought I did. At the same time though during the times that I wasn't busy or was bored I found myself wanting to get on facebook just to see what people are doing. I also noticed being a college student if there is a party no one calls to tell you anymore, they make an event and that's how they invite people now. So if I didn't hear from people I talk to I would have no idea there was a party. Now I have facebook back but I use it to promote my blog and other things that I think people would enjoy.

These are all PRIME examples of why I am so looking forward to the movement to Google+. I have now started using it and have added most of my close friends, and it is already much less spammy. By this, I mean that it asks for a lot less personal information, doesn't try to get me to add a hundred businesses in order to see or use content, isn't littered with cheap advertising and does not have my 35-year-old cousin's latest 500 crops on Farmville as all separate events. I've now gotton to the point where I feel that I need to simplify. How many times would I kill for one more hour of fun with my friends, or night to enjoy before I have to hit the hay? And I feel that I waste it spending my time clicking through meaningless bits of junk. I think before long, many others will be taking after you.

Once every few months or so I go through my list of friends and delete people, mostly the people where I have to look at their profile info and photos to even remind myself who they are. But recently, I realized I have a large amount of photos posted and I had over 500 people who could view them.... an unsettling feeling. I decided to trim the list down to 300 people by deleting people that I wouldn't say "Hi" to if I saw them on the street. I feel better about my privacy settings and what I'm putting out there now. Eventually I will take down all my photos when I start to apply for jobs.

For me, Facebook is not that time consuming. I'm not a big fan of Facebook's games. I use Facebook merely to communicate with my friends. I think Facebook has done a great job as a tool to connect with others. You can learn more about some people you might want to get to know better. It can be used as a medium to share information, news, songs, pictures, videos, or any interesting things to other people. Undeniably, you win some, you lose some. You may feel like your privacy is invaded because you want to share your personal information to specific group of people not all of them. Obviously, your "friends" in Facebook are not equally acquainted, you cannot choose to share your information specifically to your close friends. The only choice you have is that you can choose to share or not to share... or unfriend those people you do not want them to know much about you. One more option... try Google+.

After reading this article I really want to try and trim my Facebook usage and the number of friends I have. Even though I only have about 530 connections, I still am bombarded with status updates, wall posts, and numerous other updates from a large number of high-level users. It is way too much for me. I also find it frustrating when I get trapped in the "time suck". There will be times when I'm supposed to be studying or doing something else productive and I've lost an hour to sitting mindlessly on the internet. In the future, I think my facebook will remain as something I use to keep in touch with friends; however, it will be much more conservative and business-friendly in case I connect with work colleagues. I don't think I will ever delete my account because it is important to be in the loop with events, social media trends, etc.

Although I do agree almost whole heartedly with everything you wrote, I still see facebook (at least for a few more years) as a key networking site for people my age. I see the disadvantages of having something that sucks so much time and so much personal information from me, thats true, and most likly isn't going to change.  But I can still see value in having all my "friends" in one place. I am still at the stage in my life where the people I meet along the way can be very helpful resources a little further down the road. Since I am not established in a company thus far, and really am still growing as far as networking goes, it still holds value and still allows for connections to be made that otherwise may have fallen through the cracks. Sure I used to spend hours on end following all of my closest friends but now I see facebook as a way to connect with the unconnected. I may meet Joe Schmo for just 5 minutes but facebook (being the largest social networking site still) allow both Joe and I an oppertuinty. And considering in college any oppertutnity is worth trying Joe and facebook still allow me to make that connection. Someday soon Joe may land a big time job in a big time firm and you know what, we are friends, therefore, networking at its finest.

I could see trimming the fat several years from now, maybe when I'm settled and blazing my own path career wise and I don't need those trival connections anymore. But for now I'm just fine using facebook to get my name out there and admittly seeing what some of my old friends are doing.

I'm a late Facebook bloomer, despite the fact I was an undergraduate student when it really took off. That being said, my time spent on Facebook has been fairly low-key. I don't have too many friends, I don't spend too much time on it, and I don't let it dictate my life (too much). As others have said, I try to utilize Facebook to stay in touch with the people I care about most and reconnect with folks from my past.

So no, I don't see myself trimming Facebook anytime soon, but your post reminds me to monitor myself via this social media site on a continual basis and constantly re-evaluate my level of involvement there.

Once I started this class, I reactivated my Facebook account. In the past I found myself spending hours looking through photos of "friends", many times these being people that I hardly know. I was spending more time on Facebook then doing homework. I was also in a relationship where we both felt that having Facebook accounts can lead to problems down the road. Every time I log on I feel the need to delete people who I find to be an unneeded connection. Rarely do I add people as friends, since people find it difficult to find me due to my privacy settings. I feel that working in this field and possibly having to work with social media in the workplace, having a Facebook account is very important, but I feel it is very important that your page does not become completely personal. In the future I do not think I will have a Facebook page and if I do I will not be that active on it. It's easy to get lost of Facebook and waste time but I am over it. Facebook has become very person and people post very person important and photos which I find to be distrubing. Before Facebook I would not have seen the birth of a child posted by a woman that I went to elementary school. Facebook has changed what people view as private. Facebook will be in my future just because of my job, but personally I do not use it that much anymore. 

I have deactivated my Facebook account on several occasions in the past in an attempt to ween myself off of the daily monotonous usage that aids in my procrastination. In the past I've deactivated my account during finals weeks, but now that I have graduated I think I'll slow down on my usage entirely. I've thought about completely deleting my account, but then there's always those people that you haven't seen in years that suddenly show up in your friend requests. I plan to keep my account for now, but I do intend to "trim the fat," so to speak, on the number of "friends" I have. I think I have about 600 right now, and I could stand to defriend at least 250+. I'm also not a fan of Facebook's privacy policy, so I'm looking for to the launch of Google+ as a fresh start.

This post made me consider my Facebook activity. I've recently wondered what I could do with the countless hours I've spent on Facebook if I could have them back. It's pretty crazy how Facebook actually becomes a part of the average 12-30 year old life. After reviewing this blog post I think I may make some changes of my own. This is esier said than done though, in the past I have made attempts to close my facebook forever and it only last a couple of weeks tops. It's just too convinient, everyones on it...so why not just keep doing it? The one factor that deterrs me from my contious FB abuse is the privacy issue, like Derek sais.."They own everything I post." Hey I don't like that either Derek. So perhaps its time to stop sharing everything via FB, maybe I too should also trim the fat off of my page. Either way, this was an insightful post and I'll have to heed your words.

Well, mostly I use FB to connect with friends, I don't play those FB games.  I've heard a FB story that a company searched for interviewees' FB page, and they've found one candidate's profile is a naked ass, and of course, this candidate lost his opportunity. This story tells us to be careful on social media. Even though you may simply want to use FB for personal purpose, others may track you down for business purpose.

400 "Friends".  Really?  That is one of the things that I don't exactly understand about Facebook.  I'm sorry, but I don't think that it is possible to have 400 friends.  Acquaintances, maybe a few hundred.  Co-workers and ex-co-workers, also a few hundred.  But, certainly not friends.  

I understand the desire to keep in touch with people, and to build new relationships, but I don't know how you can do that on a mass scale.  Friendship is a one-to-one thing, it is something that takes time and effort.  Sending out little updates to a hundred, or a thousand, of my closest friends at a time isn't really something that oozes friendship to me.

I think that using Facebook as a tool to interact on a professional level is good.  I also think that Facebook would be fine for keeping contact with friends.  It is the mixing of the two that I have an issue with.

Derek, I absoutely LOVE the fact that you have trimmed your Facebook account. I too have done the same time. I have been on Facebook since my freshman year in college. Needless to say, I wasn't even interested in it. I JUST became computer savvy and it took one of my girlfriends to create my account for me. As time went on, I had THOUSANDS of friends. Thousands. I barely know a hundred people in real life. It took my inbox being spammed with a million threaded messages, party invitations, etc. to make me realize that I had to do some trimming myself. I currently have a little less than 300 friends on Facebook and I am completely satisfied with that, mostly for your same reasons. I don't want to spend so much of my precious time on a viral site looking at things that aren't related to me, the privacy is a huge thing for me...you barely get it on Facebook and again, I didnt need to be friends with people I did not know.

You are also right about Facebook not going anywhere. Its not and it has become more business related. I believe we both made the right choice of getting rid of some people :)

Derek, congratulations on trimming back your number of friends on Facebook. Seriously, who really is friends with 2,000 people?

For me, it's just the opposite. I use Facebook to personally stay in touch with friends and family. Facebook has allowed me to reconnect with friends, family and classmates who I rarely get to see. We share photos and and learn about each other's lives. Now when we actually see each other in person, we have so much more to talk about. But there is no way I would be FB friends with my boss, clients or certain coworkers. It's not that I post anything risqué, but I have to draw the line somewhere. Not everyone needs to know everything about me. I use LinkedIn and Twitter more for professional interests. I went to a social media presentation last month and I recall one of the panelists observing that people are on Facebook to connect personally to other people. Whereas on Twitter people are connected more by interests. I have found that to be true in my experience. On Twitter I follow people I don't know who are experts in social media and I get notices all the time letting me know that marketing and social media professionals -- that I don't know -- from across the country follow me, and that's fine. (Apparently, they think I'm some sort of social media authority now, LOL!) Now if these same strangers wanted to friend me on FB, I would immediately block them from my page. Wouldn't you?

Perhaps Google+ will be the social network that will successfully solve the dilemma of managing personal and professional connections.

I like that you call it trimming down on Facebook, I do this periodically and I call it "Spring Cleaning." But for me it's personal reasons. I will see people in my newsfeed and their updates and status are of no interest to me. Then I think, if I'm not interested in what this person is doing, saying, promoting, why do they get to see my updates. That's when I "trim" them from my friends. I use Facebook as strictly social interactions with my friends on a personal level, and keep business social media elsewhere. As I am graduating and moving away from college my Facebook I hope will be used to keep in touch with friends that I am no longer close to although I have a feeling it will begin to become more all business as you had mentioned yours has. 

Every college student would say they are on Facebook too much. I have found that the more I am on Facebook, the less productive I am, and it's probably a bad thing to be on Facebook all the time. There are positives about the site that, for me, that outweigh the fact that it wastes my time. I like knowing what my friends are up to, especially the ones I don't see every day, it helps me not forget about them. For me, my friends list is just as important to me as my phonebook in my cell phone. I hate that I spend so much time on Facebook, but I would never trim my friends list because I like knowing that I can communicate with any of my friends at any time.

I spend a good amount of time on Facebook and connecting with friends, family and co-workers, and personally I like to be in the "know." Why not utilize the main social networking sites that exist, especially since we are all studying an industry that relies on these sites to reach wanted consumers (free word of mouth). Doesn't that make sense? Isn't that what the goal of this class is? It is extremely difficult to even get-your-foot in the door in this industry: internship, part-time job, full-time job, etc. Social networking makes it that much easier to meet people and stay connected and hopefully dive into other social circles. Facebook is not meant for just "business," that's why there is LinkedIn, it is meant to be entertaining and informational on so many levels. I agree that friends should be trimmed down to people you actually know and care to know what is currently happening in their lives.

As for Facebook owning everything that we put on their site, that somewhat alarms me, but that is why I back up the pictures that I put on the site. A wise MSU professor brought up the point of Facebook having the option to start charging to use their site and "locking" profiles including their pictures as well as everything else on the site, so this is precisely why there is a need to back up everything posted on the site. If advertisers begin to pull their dollars from inadequate targeting, I would not be surprised if Facebook came with a fee.

Happy Facebook-ing.

I would say I use Facebook more than I should be. I am on more than half the day especially since my speciality centers around social media. I take Facebook as a way to keep in touch with friends and keep relationships intact. Also, I am always looking to build as I feel one day you're going to need all the connections you can get. That one friend you Facebook friended five years ago could land you a job at his company. Connections these days are what land you a job. With this, Facebook comes with an addiction that can be difficult to keep in balance. I find myself always wanting to be in the know of things with my circle of friends. 

One thing I have been hearing a lot of information on the fact that employers are able to search your social media profiles up to seven years ago. It is frightening to think that you can be turned down for a position because of a picture that was uploaded a couple years ago. I try to watch what I post, upload, and overall to be as professional as possible.

I also hate the fact that facebook owns all that you put on it. It is probably the one thing that makes me think about canceling my account! One of my friends decided to cancel her account and let me tell you it was not easy! She had to go through many pages of Are you sure? Why do you want to leave? We will miss you! Anyways, she managed to stay away for about a month. When she decided to come back to facebook they had all her information ready and waiting, making it easier then the canceling process! Anyways, I have kept my connections down to about 200. I don't want to have people that I barely know, taking up my time. The 200 people are mostly close friends and family. I find I have made it a more personal, in the way that I can keep in touch with my relatives in sweden more often then the occasional call or the rare trips over there. My opinion is always changing about facebook. We will see what happens in the future!

I absolutely love that you trimmed that many friends. I think it is hilarious but very necessary. I have about 1,000 friends and that is way too many. At this point in my life, I use facebook as a source of entertainment. It helps me get through classes or hear the latest gossip about people I went to high school with. I agree that it consumes way too much of my life, one thing I cannot stand. I know once I get a job and get in the real world for a little while, I will definitely cut down. I try to delete people I don't tlak to or don't really care about whats going on in their life. Some people are just too interesting to delete. I think Facebook is funny. I love it but hate it at the same time. I hate the fact that any picture or information that goes up is pretty much always going to be there. I know I willl continue to use facebook in the future, and I also know, my facebook usage will change once I graduate.