This last week I began tackling something I have been
meaning to do for a couple of years.
My Facebook account told me I had over fifteen hundred friends,
or, to be accurate, Facebook Friends, which includes friends and also “friends.”
Eons ago, when I first joined Facebook, I saw it as an ad
for professional connectivity, with some personal connections as a side bonus.
Over the years, it became clear to me this was reversed. Facebook turned out to be a powerful tool to
find old friends, while it was a weak way to professional discourse or
exposure.
Outside of some excellent Facebook groups, other social sites
do a better job on the professional front. It was time to trim, slim, and prim
my Facebook presence and have it make sense to me.
It’s spring, and the scent of spring cleaning took on a digital
aspect.
In one day, I trimmed more than five hundred Facebook friendships,
ones that frankly have had zero interaction with me or I with them— over many
years. I never saw their posts in my feed, and they probably never saw mine.
It was an interesting experience. Many of these ghost "friends”
have become ghosts on my friends' list: no photo (I never would have accepted a
friend request in the first place without a photo) or their accounts went
through a name change and would no longer have passed muster with even my
previous promiscuous friending practices.
After I-don’t-know-how many, my bleary eyes began glazing
over as I clicked the two buttons to finalize each unfriending. The echo of the
Queen of Hearts of Alice in Wonderland saying, “off with their heads!” chimed
as I clicked. I was almost in a trance when…
Facebook stopped me.
A box appeared telling me I am “going too fast” and this
function will be temporarily blocked. My first ever Facebook blockage had made its
debut appearance, no doubt due to their algorithm detecting what could be a
hack or some malicious interference. Because, honestly, who unfriends hundreds in
a row?
No point in assuring the Facebook that it was me and I intended this massacre. Facebook is, ironically, faceless. There is no one behind the curtain
but mechanical algorithms.
What the blockage didn’t say was what the word “temporarily”
meant. Turned out that for me and my great spring clearing it was twenty-four
hours. My project resumed a day later, and I now think I’m done. Phew.
A curious aspect for me was to find that I was not willing
to unfriend the handful of friends who have died in real life. I would remain
friends with them on Facebook just as they remain in my heart. Don’t ask why,
it’s just the way it works for me. This was the point all along: to make
Facebook work for me.
You know what? It feels better, lighter and more meaningful.
I’ve put it off, and now it’s done.
If I know you in real life and have accidentally unfriended you,
blame the sheer size of the project. I’m still a friendly person, only more discerning
when it comes to digital hygiene.
