Occasionally, I do a Facebook spring clean, i.e. I delete people off my ‘Friends’ list. I see it as a form of decluttering, a bit like email Inbox spring cleaning. As with all forms of decluttering, it somehow makes me feel better even if such an act may seem anti-social to some people. So\u00a0how then do I decide who to delete? Here are my three criteria:\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
1. People I have met only once and will probably not meet ever again.<\/p>\n
2. People whose (frequent)\u00a0Facebook updates are annoyingly narcissitic, self-absorbed, inane or presents too much information that is necessary.\u00a0E.g. Waiting\u00a0for bus. [So? Who the hell cares?] \/ Looking for a new house but this condominium has a\u00a0cheesy name. Should\u00a0I consider it or not??? [I mean, seriously, stop flaunting your wealth already. Most people in Singapore can only afford HDB government flats, OK?] \/\u00a0Don’t ask me, but I\u00a0just woke up from the worst nightmare ever!!! [OK,\u00a0if you don’t want people to ask, then don’t post\u00a0such a status update! Attention seeker.]\u00a0<\/p>\n
3. People who don’t take an interest in my life and vice\u00a0versa, even if I\u00a0knew them from ages ago. But you\u00a0know, sometimes people drop out of your life, as you from theirs, and there is no point in keeping that tenuous\u00a0bit of meaningless connection.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u00a0try to keep\u00a0the number of friends to\u00a0a maximum of 300.\u00a0As a personal rule, I don’t add\u00a0current colleagues\u00a0as\u00a0friends. I\u00a0hardly ever post\u00a0status updates except for\u00a0hiking\u00a0and travel photos, and the occasional food pic.\u00a0I use Facebook\u00a0more to organise events and write occasionally to friends (private messages of course and not posting on their walls for everyone to see). Other times, I’m mostly the voyeur\u00a0who browses my\u00a0Facebook\u00a0newsfeed to see what my friends are up to.<\/p>\n
I spring-cleaned my Facebook ‘Friends’ list a\u00a0week ago and at\u00a0last count I had 278 friends. I guess that’s a pretty OK number…neither the social butterfly nor the social hermit. I think I can deal with that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Occasionally, I do a Facebook spring clean, i.e. I delete people off my ‘Friends’ list. I see it as a form of decluttering, a bit like email Inbox spring cleaning. As with all forms of decluttering, it somehow makes me … Continue reading