My Facebook principle

I’ve wanted to talk about this topic for sometime already..

You know, sometimes strangers would add you on Facebook – a common feature I know. Some you would outright reject some you would accept, because you see that the number of mutual friends are very high. So tada, you added another ‘friend’ on Facebook.

Not that I’m snobbish or what, I don’t have the habit of adding strangers and even some acquaintances, honestly. I used to randomly add and accept friend requests on Friendster, but decided to be more sincere once on Facebook. Some probably think it’s no big deal, but the idea of degrading the value of the term “friend” makes me uncomfortable.

When you don’t even know several of your contacts on networking sites, it means that they are merely objects, rather than subject. I can tell you those 2 terms are very different in nature, and I don’t wish to objectify my friends at all.

Last week was my birthday, and many posted wishes on my wall. Thanks people, really appreciated that (really!) But there are some people who are quite close to me who posted wishes on my wall as well.

Hold on, why did you post on my wall when we don’t even talk physically at all? I find it a little disturbing because they dont mean it. Yeah, perhaps it’s just a friendly gesture. But why bother doing it when you’re neither sincere nor genuine? Having someone’s birthday appearing your newsfeed doesn’t make you obliged to post him/her a birthday post. For me, I won’t post such posts unless that person’s really close to me and when I genuinely mean it.

When you wish someone you aren’t close with on Facebook, you only serve to objectify him. He’s not a subject to you and you’re not a subject to him. If you wanna do it, make sure you are at least on the talking-on-a-face-to-face-basis level. Or else all will be just insincere and insignificant talk.

Facebook breeds superficiality, and I don’t like it at all.