Quote:
Originally Posted by prefabsprout
Up until recently I hadn't had a problem with facebook. I think this was because for a long time I had a very small friend list and they were all people I knew in real life and liked.
I would say it got more complicated recently with a few people I felt obliged to add because they requested and I did not like to refuse. This has mainly been work. Most of my colleagues add each other, and sure enough I got requests, a few I was okay with, most tbh I wasn't really, but I work with these people and snubbing them didn't feel right.
Most recently I got a request from a supervisor, my heart sank. Yes he is an okay guy, I like working with him, but he & I would never be friends outside of work, we have nothing in common. But he's my supervisor so I felt compelled to accept. I looked through his timeline and most of it is benign family stuff but there was some pretty controversial stuff around the London terrorist attack. It made me feel uncomfortable. I'd rather not know these things about his personal thoughts.
I post rarely, it's mostly to share social photos etc, and I don't go out much so there's not much of that. But even so I have been through my settings limiting what he and other colleagues can see.
It's such a minefield! Sometimes I wish I'd never joined, but there again it has been useful in keeping in touch and nearly everyone does it these days.
Trying to keep out my head the stuff this supervisr posted, but it's going to be tricky for me - I wish I could 'unsee'.
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This is all why I left FB. But that's not my main point, I am not here to advise that, that's up to you. What I will say is that I understand your problem of feeling obligated to add people sometimes.
FB is just, plainly and simply, too intrusive for acquaintances. It should be a platform for very close people you trust because the potential of seeing or sharing things that casual friends dont' need to know is so high.
You have every right though, to deny and/or remove friends from your fb. Thing is, it doesn't have to be personal and you can tell the people that you deny that this is the case, that you don't use fb for anyone but very close friends, and that it is across the board and not about them. Same if you feel the need to remove a few friends that aren't close enough to trust.
That's what I would do. The key here in doing this successfully without too much repercussion is being consistent. If you say that you're going to restrict your fb like I said above, do so, and do so diligently and consistently. Once you tell someone that you are strict and then let another casual and common friend in, the chance is that they will question why the rule change and why for others but not them.
or if you feel the need, leave fb. I have been off of fb for a good 2 months I think and I feel no need to go back nor do I feel I am missing something. Life goes on.