How Not to Lose Friends

At 4:37 in the afternoon, Mike told me that he’s going to take a nap, Sara said she’s watching TV, and John explained how he’s been in the bathroom “for like, ever.”

Now why did I just share these enthralling tales with you? Because they shared them with me. Now, you must be thinking that I have the most boring friends on the planet.

But wait! These people are not my friends, and they did not talk to me.  They thoughtfully provided these fascinating little windows into their lives to not only me, but to their 700 “friends”, via the Facebook news feed.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m all for keeping up with what my friends are doing. But John, I barely even know you, and something tells me that even the people who do, probably don’t care how long you’ve been on the loo either. With the ability to instantly broadcast every detail of our lives over Facebook, it’s important to realize when not to click that ‘share’ button.

Facebook can be a very convenient and efficient way to keep in touch with family and friends – there’s no denying that. However, every social media user can also attest to the fact that, in addition to all the people you love to hear from, there’s also a handful of “friends” that make you roll your eyes every time you see one of their posts pop up on the news feed.

Of all the Facebook offenders, perhaps none are more well known than the person who has to post every single detail of their day online:

Awesome! Kelsea, thank you for sharing that with us, we are all better off for knowing that you practice basic hygiene just like everybody else in the country. But wait; was the water too hot, too cold, or just right? Did you condition or just shampoo this time? Please tell us more!

Next up, we have the “Shameless Self-Promoter and Spammer”. This person posts things like, “Wow, I studied less than John and still managed to beat him by 15%!” Or even, “Got the promotion as expected! What am I going to do with all this extra money?” While people have the right to brag about their achievements when appropriate, this is the person who is constantly filling up your news feed with posts about how awesome he is. This Facebook user may even take it one step further by consistently spamming his friends with invites and links. “Vote for me in the Battle of the Bands survey!” “Check out this link to my photography site.” “Please ‘like’ this page and support my friend’s sister’s former roommate’s new clothing line!” We understand what you are trying to do here, but if you could wait more than 5 seconds between each spam message that’d be great.

Additionally, there’s always someone who managed to successfully graduate from school, yet still can’t seem to use basic grammar and spelling on Facebook:

Daniel, I think you mean “that” instead of “day”, and “passing” instead of “passion.” I bet Whitney would agree with me that you should at least know how to spell “passing” in order to receive a likewise grade in English class.

Another type of post we have all grown to hate is the “Overly-Generalized Sweeping Statement” status update: 

There’s always one person who loves to make posts that are so ridiculously broad and oversimplified that they become downright annoying. Zoey’s post is a perfect example of this. Sometimes it might take a response like the one above to make this person re-examine her own behavior before broadly criticizing an entire gender of people. Touche, Toby.

Finally, we have the “I-don’t-know-the-difference-between-funny-and-inappropriate” poster:

While there are certain things you might not want to post to Facebook, this guy takes it to a whole new level. For obvious reasons, broadcasting the fact that you committed a crime to your 800-plus “friends” online is probably not a good idea. This is the same guy who uploaded pictures to your wall of you projectile-vomiting at last weeks party, even when he knows that Facebook is the main way you keep in contact with your family back home.

Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking sites have developed into a fantastic way to easily stay connected with all the people in our lives. However, just because we can share everything with everybody, it doesn’t mean that we should. Let the posts discussed above serve as a stern reminder to us all: As social media users, it’s everyone’s duty to think before we click.