To Facebook or not to Facebook...
That is the question.
Something that's recently come up in my 21st Century Web 2.0 media universe is the etiquette of Facebook Friending, the process by which one discovers known persons (or unknown persons!) on Facebook and decides to make them a Facebook Friend, giving them access to all of the things you do that frankly, aren't your job, while the hamster wheels in your mind are busy processing exactly how you tell a story about... Stuff.
For example, this morning someone I've never even heard of requested to be my friend on Facebook. This person works in PR and I'm a journalist. A handful of my co-workers were his friends already. I didn't know him from Adam.
Am I supposed to say yes?
Then there's the "Facebook Friends I Work With" issue and whether, upon discovering your boss is on Facebook, you friend him or wait for him to friend you? A brief survey of my compatriots revealed that most people think that the boss should be the one to initiate friending. However, we couldn't come up with any repercussions against being the friend-instigator with higher ups. But it seemed a better idea to wait. And then not to jump on and accept their friend request right away, lest they think you're spending your day on Facebook and not, say, engrossed in the workings of Apple.
A friend, a graduate student with a Facebook profile whose students are all on Facebook has made his profile unsearchable to them and others to keep his adult life separate from his teaching life, which is a good idea and has so far worked out well.
Facebook is, in my opinion, a delightful networking site that allows me to keep up with far-flung friends and family and to share some down time with my colleagues. I don't see it as a business tool or even a business-building or networking tool. There's too much crap out there and there really are things one wants to keep separate from one's work life, like the whole Church and State issue. Oh yeah, and the fact that everyone under the age of 30 has at least 1 - at least! - picture of themselves somewhere on Facebook in which they are drunk or drinking.
And if you don't yet, you will soon. Discuss amongst yourselves.
Something that's recently come up in my 21st Century Web 2.0 media universe is the etiquette of Facebook Friending, the process by which one discovers known persons (or unknown persons!) on Facebook and decides to make them a Facebook Friend, giving them access to all of the things you do that frankly, aren't your job, while the hamster wheels in your mind are busy processing exactly how you tell a story about... Stuff.
For example, this morning someone I've never even heard of requested to be my friend on Facebook. This person works in PR and I'm a journalist. A handful of my co-workers were his friends already. I didn't know him from Adam.
Am I supposed to say yes?
Then there's the "Facebook Friends I Work With" issue and whether, upon discovering your boss is on Facebook, you friend him or wait for him to friend you? A brief survey of my compatriots revealed that most people think that the boss should be the one to initiate friending. However, we couldn't come up with any repercussions against being the friend-instigator with higher ups. But it seemed a better idea to wait. And then not to jump on and accept their friend request right away, lest they think you're spending your day on Facebook and not, say, engrossed in the workings of Apple.
A friend, a graduate student with a Facebook profile whose students are all on Facebook has made his profile unsearchable to them and others to keep his adult life separate from his teaching life, which is a good idea and has so far worked out well.
Facebook is, in my opinion, a delightful networking site that allows me to keep up with far-flung friends and family and to share some down time with my colleagues. I don't see it as a business tool or even a business-building or networking tool. There's too much crap out there and there really are things one wants to keep separate from one's work life, like the whole Church and State issue. Oh yeah, and the fact that everyone under the age of 30 has at least 1 - at least! - picture of themselves somewhere on Facebook in which they are drunk or drinking.
And if you don't yet, you will soon. Discuss amongst yourselves.
Comments
i don't even friend people that i have met before and had fun with but they are not my friends. its just weird. like a high school popularity contest.
okay can i be annoying like ABC? this caption says : note that the word "friend" as pertains to facebook can now be used as a verb as well as a noun! you can FRIEND someone, or they can be your FRIEND. if you write that word enough times, it starts to look very unfriendly. friend friend friend friend friend.
thanks no thanks.
my FAVORITE, however, is when you get the friend request from the girl that was really really mean to you dorky little self in elementary school.
weird