I thought maybe two or three students would “friend” me out of pity, but I was rather surprised that within about 24 hours I had 35 confirmed “friends” — several of those within the first few minutes of registering for the service. Only half of those contacts are from Seton Hill — the rest are academics I know from the blogosphere and from conferences.
A few are people I knew in my hazy pre-Internet youth, including theater friends from my student-acting days.
When I get back into the office, I’m going to have to set up some e-mail filters, because this is what my in box looks like at the moment. If all my students use their university accounts for Facebook, it’s
probably no wonder that some of them seem to have trouble finding my
e-mails. (P.S. In the time it took me to put this entry together, I picked up 2 more “friends.”)
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Well, I had to make sure I didn't accidentally enter any books twice.
Dr. Jerz,
I noticed all of your books were in alphabetical order once while looking at your Facebook page. That is so you lol.
Yes, something like "contact" would be more neutral, but I think it's the emotional impact of the term "friend" that's part of the site's addictive nature.
Thanks for explaining. I appreciate the perspective and I understand what you mean about the meaning of the word. I've thought in the past that perhaps Facebook could allow people to select a term like "Associates" or "Acquaintances" but I think then things would get too technical and, well, "friends" just seems to be more of an umbrella term for "people who know me in some aspect of life (maybe) and know I'm on Facebook." It's tough being an introvert in any sense on such a site as Facebook.
Yes, I'm putting quotation marks around "friends" because I think Facebook is seriously going to change the meaning of the word. It's the main reason I haven't used Facebook until now. Friendship is, to me, a very private thing... while I am on good terms with many people, and enjoy associating with many people, I'm uncomfortable ascribing the single term "friend" to all those potential relationships awaiting codification in Facebook. (My teaching personal is extroverted, and I'm very expressive with my family, but other than that I'm fairly introverted.)
I do like the fact that I can signal that I am looking for "networking" (which is general enough) rather than "friendship."
Are you putting "friends" in quotes because of the Internet status or because we might not really be friends? I'm just wondering.
You can tell Facebook what you want to receive email alerts for, which is very helpful. The incessant emailing became too cumbersome for me so I changed the settings (because even though I use Apple's Mail program to aggregate all of my email addresses and can sort as well as color-code, it's easier to never get the ones I don't care about at all). Just a friendly tip.
P.S. I love that you admit that Facebook can be quite addicting. :)