Recently, I was sitting in the Camosun Women’s Centre lounge listening to an interesting conversation about social media and breakups.
The discussion between two women was about breaking up and fighting with their common best friend, and both were going to delete the enemy on Facebook.
Nowadays, when someone gets into a heated argument with a friend or breaks up with someone, the first thing the person who is hurt the most does is log into Facebook, go to the other person’s profile, and delete them: a metaphorical slap in the face.
It’s the most passive-aggressive way of handling a situation, and Facebook has opened a whole new world of hurt because of it.
The other weird trend on Facebook is the “friend cleanse.” I get a kick out the folks who make an announcement in their status such as, “Just did a friend cull, if you see this it means you made it.” Are we meant to be grateful? I get it; we have friends from elementary school on our friends lists that we have no intention of talking to regularly, or people who continuously share things we couldn’t care less about.But do they deserve to be deleted?
Let’s be real, because there are many reasons why you should relax and not rush to delete people from your social-networking sites.
The obvious one is networking.
Say you are looking for a last-minute dogsitter, or wanting to get into a certain job market. You never know who is on your list that you can connect with, even if it has been years since you last spoke, and that can help you… or you can help them.
The beauty of social media is that it allows us to remain lightly connected to people without having to interact with them on a regular basis.