Friends who byte
18 March 2008 (News Strait Times)
By RIDZWAN A. RAHIM *As everyone who joins Facebook eventually discovers, the problem is not having too few 'friends' but too many. In fact, it can overwhelm. RIDZWAN A. RAHIM talks to a hardcore user on how to deal with this. MAIMUN Yusuf became an instant celebrity during the last general election, not just for being the oldest candidate at 89 years of age, but also because she used Facebook as part of her election campaign. Her profile page has her birthday - June 24, 1919 - as well as pictures from her campaign rounds in Kuala Terengganu, a YouTube video and a status update that reads, "Maimun Yusuf has lost in the elections. :(" Maimun is a recent user of Facebook and although she did not succeed in becoming a Member of Parliament, her online presence has garnered more than 400 "friends" and counting. It is a large number for anyone to deal with but Maimun isn't losing any of her productive hours to Facebook-ing. In fact, she does not even use the PC. Her Facebook account is managed by a trio of tech-savvy young people. Maimun deserves a "lucky-poke". Other users are not so "lucky". They have to deal with their Facebook friends themselves. It can be quite a chore answering all the "hugs", "butt-slaps" and "movie quiz challenges" that accumulate in the inbox over the course of days. Seasoned users may accumulate thousands of friends on Facebook. "I have 928 friends at the moment," says Izwan Kamal, who has been on Facebook since January 2005. A staggering number, especially for someone who says he knows 98 per cent of the people on his list. But then the 26-year-old can explain. "My father was a diplomat and I've moved around all my life. I was born in London, stayed there for three years, then moved to Washington DC, New York City, Brazil, Belgium and Cuba. And then I went to study in Kalamazoo, Michigan." Facebook, he says, is a godsend because it enables him to reconnect with old friends such as a particular friend he knew from living in Brazil when he was 12. "My friend Marco is half Danish and half Brazilian. We went to fifth grade together," he says. "I see Facebook as a bonus to the existing way of communicating. If it didn't exist, I'd have to rely on chance to get in touch with those old friends again." He adds that Facebook makes it easier to manage his contacts as he can basically put all of them in one location. As everyone who joins the social networking website quickly learns, there is no shortage of people to add as your friends. Typically, a new user will add a dozen or so genuine friends. It is only a matter of time before requests from annoying former colleagues and ex-girlfriends start coming in (they somehow just find you) and the line between real friendship and Facebook friendship begins to blur. So how can you separate friends from mere online acquaintances? How do you tell someone that you don't want to be their friend? What if one day you discover that you have countless "friends" whom you either don't know or don't like? Every Facebooker should have his or her own standard for this. "I add people whom I've met at least once, especially those whom I think I might be working with in the future," says Izwan, who is a film director by profession. "So it's mainly for networking when it comes to people I don't really know." Just like on Friendster, he adds, there are strange people who add you randomly and claim they know you from somewhere. A quick way to tell is the lack of any common friend. What's the worst thing that can happen if you add people indiscriminately? Potential employers and headhunters have been known to pose as Facebook users and go online to vet candidates. "Now that anybody with a .edu account can log on, headhunters will get on Facebook and try to add you as a friend to see what you're really like," says Izwan. Job applications have been turned down because of this. Also, you know too much about other people's lives. "If you are on Facebook, there's no such thing as keeping your life private unless you change your privacy settings," says Izwan. Say, for example, you have a girlfriend and an ex-girlfriend who do not like each other very much. Your ex-girlfriend posts pictures of you and her together at a party. Facebook has a newsfeed feature that may broadcast these pictures to others in your list, which may include your current girlfriend, and this may upset her. You might not have taken the photos yourself but other people might have you in their photos. "I imagine it has caused many broken relationships," says Izwan, adding that with the Internet, it is even more important now than ever to be transparent. *Fun and user-friendly* SURE, with people in your friends list, you can view each other's profiles, share photos, play games, e-mail, engage in quizzes, plan parties, not to mention "poke" each other (which, according to Facebook, is a feature without any specific purpose; users are encouraged to come up with their own interpretation). Apart from Facebook's fun factor, there are things about it that makes it the preferred choice to other similar websites such as Friendster and MySpace. "It spreads like wildfire because it is such a user-friendly system," says Izwan Kamal, who used Friendster before joining Facebook in 2005, the year after Facebook was created. The layout is simple compared to MySpace and Friendster, he says. For example, when you want to write something quick to your friends, you just write on their walls. Friendster, by contrast, requires you to use something called a testimonial. You actually have to go on a different page in order to write anything. "The wall is a lot more efficient," says Izwan, who still maintains a Friendster account that he logs in to once a day. Users have also reported developing a liking for Facebook's photo tagging feature. Basically, you identify the people pictured in the image. If the people are your Facebook friends, the tags serve as links to their profiles and you can find out more about them. Finally, Facebook makes you a better friend by reminding you of your friends' birthdays. "Let's face it, not many people will remember your birthday but thanks to Facebook, all your friends will know it is coming," says Izwan. |
