Facebook

Remember when you had to have an official school email to join Facebook?  Remember when all the ridiculous applications did not exist and the "newsfeed" was simply comprised of updates on your friend's lives and new photos that have been posted?

Lately I have been struggling with what to do with my facebook account.  I really like it for keeping in touch with my friends and since grad school began, it has been my only means of communication with a lot of people.  I like it for posting photos of adventures with friends because it makes sharing photos so much easier.  I think it is a great way to network and have benefited from random connections I have made through facebook.  I like that it allows me to see photos of my friend's weddings and babies; especially of those weddings I've missed and the babies I have yet to meet.

However, things have changed.

These days, most of my friend's parents are on facebook and see no problem requesting to be my "friend".  Then, there is the "friend" request from your own parents... Though the content of my facebook account is mostly appropriate, there are some nights that produce photos unnecessary for my parents (or friend's parents) to see.  For most of us, our parents are not very technology savvy and most likely do not check their account but once or twice a month.  But lately, I have been getting "friend requests" from some pretty random people I knew at different periods of my life.  People that I dont know if I would even recognize if I saw them on the street.  But for some reason, they think we should be "friends".

So I deny their request...

How odd it is to have such a vivid glimpse into someone's life after having no clue what they've been doing for the last decade?  I feel like Facebook has taken away some of the intimacy that comes with truly knowing someone...  With one click you get full access to the details of a "friend's" life with or without them knowing you're doing so.

So what to do?  My current solution is to pair down my list of "friends" to only those who I want to have that inside glimpse of my life.  But every time I delete a "friend" I feel slightly bad for doing so and even worse when they request my friendship again.  I miss the old days of Facebook...