Yet Another Annoying Facebook question...haha

I think my 13 yr old said it best. When asked why she only has about 50 facebook friends when all her friends seem to be in competition to see how many they can accumulate, she said, "Why would I want to be friends with them on facebook when I'm not even friends with them in real life?".

You can unfriend them or block them. I don't friend everyone from my past. I only friend people that I want to share my life with.

Doesn't bother me. I don't have anything to hide. And, I like looking at pics of my acquaintances from high school to see what they look like now.

I think people just search for people from the past and when they find them, they ask them to be friends so they can chat, see their pictures, etc. I don't think it's lurking because if you have your profile set correctly, they can only see your name and nothing else. Sometimes people will put a note in their like 'hey did you go to X school?' or something like that. It does not bother me at all, honestly.

Happens to me all the time. You have to be a friend to see my photos though. If it is someone I know or knew in the past...and I am friends on FB with them...lurk away. My kids are cute...and I like showing them off to people...as long as I know they are not naasty....I will only put photos of them on there that I feel comfortable with people looking at...I lurk...If someone posts something and I am interested in their life for a brief moment...I lurk..comment and move on...As long as it is something you dont sit down and do methodically...I dont see anything wrong with it. If you dont want the person to comment on your photos or even look at them...unfriend them...which is funny we can do this in this day and age...fifteen years ago I woulda said...how rude! now..it is just a part of the vocabulary!!

I was able to connect with some of my best friends from when I was younger...That to me is priceless! I talked to them almost everyday via FB..I also have been able to keep better touch with my family! I have several members that live in Europe, it is how we get to enjoy their family as well. I would be missing out on alot if it were not for FB....I limit myself to just one social network though...twitter and all the others are just weird.

Im with you! That is why I did not use my maiden name on there.. I have no need or desire to keep up with high school friends. I think some people just like to have a high number of "friends" on their profile.

This totally bugs me. I think some people friend old HS classmates for one of a few reasons: curiosity to see what they're up to and what they look like now, because they're "collecting friends" and like to have hundreds of people on their friend list, or because they're genuinely interested in reconnecting. It becomes clear pretty quickly to me which someone is. If it's either of the two former, I just unfriend them after a few weeks.

maybe they just want to know what you are up to, how you are, catch glimpses of your kiddos and life and love and all that, but they are just busy and loved you, once upon a time, enough to want to see where you ended up and feel connected to you somehow.

I can only speak for myself and why i have added people i barely converse with.

I have tons of friends from high school and other walks of life that hardly ever comment or post anything to me. It's fun though when I do post a funny story and they "like" it. When a reunion comes around it will be fun to have something in common to break the ice, to talk about instead of just staring at each other.

I sent messages to some of them to find out how their life turned out. I thought it was odd to be friends with them and not know. I did get friended by some of them just so we could have neighbors in the games. Then it was pretty easy to find common ground if we did have a chat. As for the others, I don't post anything I don't want the world to know about...much to my very private and introverted husbands dismay.

I have over 50 relatives that I am friends with too. Most of them I have met at one time or another throughout our lives. My dad was next to the baby of 14 children and 11 grew to adulthhood, got married and all of them had an average of 5.75 kids. My family of me, 1 brother and 1 sister is the smallest.

I have 1st cousins that were born before my mom, she was born in 1924! My oldest uncle was born in 1898. So, some of my relatives I have never met and am able to find a familial connection and build it a bit.

It takes work but I am getting to interact with people I have things in common with. If you don't want to be friends with these people the simply click the X next to their name in your account area of friends. They may try to re-friend you because they enjoy your attitude, stories, antidotes, any reason really.

Take some time and send them a message and ask questions about their life. What happened to them. Did they have children? Did they have a career? It's fun to me to find out what life experiences they had and how they changed from the kids we were way back then.

Everyone is different. I've deleted people because it's clear they don't want any conversation or interaction but the ability to be 'nosey' if you will. I have an iPhone so I can access facebook at anytime. I talk to quite a bit of family, friends, and old acquaitences. It's a nice way to keep in touch, see people you wouldn't normally see, or use as a place to vent or ask questions just as we do here on mamapedia. You just have to weed out the bad people and know how to navigate to keep the bad stuff out. There are a lot of people with couponing advice and tips, etc. I keep up with news and traffic. I keep my live feed clear of the 'rif raf' if you will. It's all in what you want it to be. There's no protocol. You can hide people. I have some young cousins that get beside themselves so there posts don't show up in my live feed. Some things are better left un-read.

You can't let facebook annoy you. If you used wisely, it's a good thing. But you know there will always be those...other people. :)

My understanding is that some people seem to feel that the more FB friends you have, the more popular/validated/valued you are. Personally, I don't need to see what everyone has eaten for breakfast, especially people that couldn't be bothered to say hi to me in high school. Yes, the randoms came out of the woodwork when I joined too, & I told those with whom I had been at least friendly that I was trying to keep my friends list small, mostly family & just a handful of close friends; others I didn't even bother responding to - there is no way for people to track the friend requests they've sent, & they receive no notification that you've simply ignored the friend request. Also, you can accept a friend request but then hide the posts by that person (as I've had to for some younger cousins - the things they can say are so inappropriate!). For others, it seems to be sort of a way of permitted voyeurism or stalking, even - they are interested in what you're up to, but more in a nosy way, rather than a friendly way. If you've friended someone but aren't comfortable with that decision, you can also just delete "friends" without them receiving a notification of it. Just do what makes you feel comfortable for each individual.

I, too, am a part-time FBer (I actually only signed up to play Scrabble with my friends, but I won't say that here because it's a bit geek-ish!) What you describe has happened to me a lot and I also don't get it. I've had obscure family members from my M-I-L's side that I've never met and my husband doesn't even know try and friend me - also with no comments at all as well as old friends from long ago. I typically ignore them. I don't know if there's a FB "etiquette" but I think unless I want to have a relationship with the person, there's no need to give them that much access to me!

It bothers me a lot. When I first started my Facebook account, it was to keep in touch with a friend who was moving out of town. But then I started getting friend requests from people I went to high school with who I hadn't talked to in years (I didn't have any of their contact info or anything). I was excited, so I wrote private messages to a few people hoping to catch up. And I got no response. And I got no messages from other people. This is when I realized that people like to collect "friends" on their Facebook pages without actually talking to them. So now I really don't spend that much time on Facebook; it does help with keeping in touch with a few friends since I've moved, but other than that I don't really have the time or patience for it.

No this does not bother me. In fact that's why I LOVE FB, I actually use it as sort of a rolodex. It's really nice to know where a person is, a little about their lives, that they're well and happy, don't usually need a personal exchange.

:)

Well, it is weird. I only have one friend on FB who is a old friend (from HS).
I was so happy when I found her. We had kept in touch for years after I moved away and then-she disappeared.

Enter FB, which I was late in joining the bandwagon, and voila! I found her!
Well guess what? "My friend" doesn't exist anymore.
She has been replaced by someone who is kinda creepy. (Long story-but yes, creepy is the word and I am not being judgmental.) (Ex.: she posted a link of a old story of a little girl who was murdered by family...and said it was hilarious.)

I don't defriend her (for a few different reasons) but I don't talk to her either.
That's my story of connecting w/ a old friend. Lol. And why I don't want to "connect" anymore.

W/ my other friends we occasionally write back and forth. But nothing meaningful. I miss getting a good old email, personally.

I think the idea that-hey, you can see my updates, therefore you know my life-is the mentality.

FB claims to connect us but really does the opposite. :(

This does not bother me at all. I enjoy facebook, I moved several states away from where I grew up. I'll have my 20 year class reunion next year, and I look at all my facebook "Friends" profiles to see what they have been up too... I don't think that is weird at all... I don't talk on a regular to everyone I'm friends with, say Hi every now and then... I like facebook but I do know some people are very private and don't want others to know what they are up too, like my sister... I was always a friendly person and lost contact with a lot of them, they weren't my closest friends, but have been part of my life and I find it interesting how their life has turned out...

I am approaching my mid thirties and rarely use FB. At first I thought I would use it to stay in touch with friends better, to post pictures of the kids to family could see them growing but found out I just don't have all that much time to devot to FB. Interestingly enough I work with a gal 12 years younger than I am. She has a more "advanced" cell phone than I do and it is connected at her hip. Her FB goes off constantly on her phone and it drives me crazy! I am her Supervisor and remind her constantly that her life will go on without her phone or her FB page going off every second. I use it minimally and am always perplexed by what people post . . . I don't get it either. To me using FB as often as I see people posting means that they just have too much time on their hands - LOL! I don't have that much time. Although I am at work right now :) Guess I should get back to it. Have a great day ladies!!!

I'm guilty of this. I think between two email accounts, FB with 600 friends, Twitter and my daily life, I'm swamped with information. Some of it is my choice, obviously, but it is a lot to manage. Back in the old day when I would find an email address of an old friend, I would send a long email about my life and inquiring about hers. Now that seems just too time-consuming. Now I'll friend her and I know where to find her when I have time to strike up a conversation by commenting on her posts or her photos.

If they don't say "hi" then I say it first. Sometimes people don't like to be pushy. Personally, I do.

I think its weird too. If I ask to be "friends" with an old friend I always add a little message with it. Once they accept I write on their wall, something about what I saw in their pictures or something. Then it depends on the response from them, if we catch up and I want to stay in contact, I do. If not, I delete them.

I know I have over 300 friends, people I really know or used to. It's nice to see what is going on in their lives, I'm not sure if that's 'lurking'? But I don't always write them all every day. Sometimes it's months between contact for some of my friends, but I still like seeing videos of their kids' Halloween, etc.
Part of Facebook is friendly feelings. If you don't have friendly feelings, don't 'frend' that person.
If you do, say 'hi' yourself.

I do not Accept friend requests from people I do not want to see my business or I totally do not know.

Yes, I have a ton of old classmates, even way back to elementary school! I have found old coworkers, neighbors..
We have the best time sharing funny stories about our families, interesting articles.. etc.. Some weekend nights we are all howling at the crazy things we are all talking about.. It has helped lots of us meet up more often than we ever did before.

Also just because you are "friends" on facebook, does not mean you are best friends, you are just friendly.

If you do not have time and do not want people creeping around your page, just do not accept them..

I tend to post a lot of info about what is going on here in Austin, so I ALWAYS warn people I post a lot and they may want to "hide" me so I do not take over their page..

Also a lot of people are on facebook, but never really post, instead their families send "PM" Private messages.. It is easier on FB than sending out emails if the whole family is on there.

If you want to hear from the people on facebook, just write something on their wall.. It is like the phone.. it goes both ways.

The younger people today, do add the names of the people they meet or work with etc.. I do not think it is so they can "LOOK" like they have a lot of friends, it is just a way for them to keep in touch with the people they meet.. It is like collecting calling cards in the early 1900's or business cards in the late 1900's..

You can always unfriend them.. It is not something to be taken personally, sometimes, I clean out my "friends list".

Most of the people I went to highschool with have friended me or I have friended them, and we barely speak. But I don't talk or comment to most people, even my family. I'm just not a talkative (commentative?) person. My husband is in the military, so many people I haven't seen in 10 years or more. So even if we don't comment much, we can see what's going on in each others lives and that's nice. For me it's not much different than my next door neighbors. We have probably spoken 3 times in the last year. But we do see each other, we know what our kids are doing, and we get the occasional smile and wave in. The only time I have later removed a friend was if I really didn't like the things they were saying on their page.