I was not aware that having a Facebook account came with formal social obligations.
I actually have a Facebook page, but I haven’t signed on since the day I set it up over 3 years ago. Now I have yet another reason not to get around to doing that.
Oh, and we all should bookmark this page because the OP would be great to link to in any discussion of how new parents think that they’re the center of the universe.
A good friend of mine will be having a baby (and, not coincidentally, getting married) within the next few months, and I’m not going to “like” it or make a comment about it on Facebook, I’m going to see her and the baby in person and go to the wedding. That’s the measure of a good friend, not whether they click a button on a social networking website. (Can I say “get off my lawn” if I’ve only just turned 20?)
I’ll delete someone from my Facebook if they post nothing but dumb shit, or make racist/homophobic comments, or join racist/homophobic groups. “Liking” too many groups is annoying too but I won’t delete a person for doing so - unless I have no contact with them in real life and it wouldn’t be awkward to explain next time I see them that I deleted them from Facebook because I thought they were a complete twat.
Ditto what lots of folks have said about the OP overreacting. I never presume that anybody should bother to comment on anything I decide to post. I like it when people do, but no way I can see getting upset at those who don’t!
I hid one of my cousins because she’d clog up an entire page of my news feed with Zoo World and Cafe World and Farm World and Whateverelse World, as well as various links and videos – but never, never a single word she’d actually written herself.
Horrible idea. This, I think, is part of the problem with Facebook, that people get lazy with their socializing, but still expect others not to be. You posted something that’s important to you, and that’s great, you should, but that doesn’t mean that everyone on your friends list saw it or thought that commenting was meaningful.
For instance, one of my cousins is apparently doing very well athletically in high school and getting recognition in the local media. I’ve even read some of the posts on it, but as he’s a cousin that I’ve seen perhaps a couple times in my life, I don’t really feel like it’s meaningful to post a “grats” on every single post about it from him or his parents. It doesn’t mean I’m necessarily uninterested, I like knowing about it, but I don’t see how me commenting on it is meaningful. However, if it was specifically posted in a way where felt like my contribution was meaningful, I absolutely would say what I felt was appropriate.
If I were in your shoes and recently had a kid, I would feel miffed if, someone I feel close too didn’t say anything, only because they were close enough that I would notice that they didn’t, but if a cousin I haven’t seen in 10 years didn’t say something, or someone I went to high school with… big deal.
The real problem here, is the expectations you have. Do you expect the same level of excitement and interest from everyone you have friended on facebook? A real life equivalent would be like walking into a crowded room, announcing you recently had a kid, and then being upset that someone 50 feet away either didn’t hear you or didn’t think it was worth working through the crowd just to say one more “grats” in a pile of a hundred others from everyone closer. If you sent out an individual notice to people, you’d get a much better response.
Bottom line, I never make a post with the expectation of any responses. If I expect a response, I’ll direct it at someone, by either posting it on their wall, sending them a message, or actually talking to them, even if it’s just in Facebook messaging.
With regard to a litmus test, I’ve never unfriended anyone, but that’s only really incidental since I’ve only been on facebook for about a year (only a couple cases where I thought it may have been appropriate, but they beat me to it or I just didn’t care enough to bother). Obviously, following a break-up, it’s usually a good idea to unfriend (unless, I suppose, it’s amicable and/or you have significant overlap in your social circles that won’t change). If it’s someone that I want ZERO contact with because I actively dislike them, I would do it then, but if it’s someone I just am not that interested in, I don’t see the point, because maybe one day I will… never know when an old co-worker or friend from high school might say something you’re interested in.
I do, however, occassionally block status updates from some people. I generally only do that, though, if it’s someone that posts a lot, and it’s really annoying. This is also generally the best option when the person is family since there’s less risk of family drama (depending on how tightly knit and gossippy your family is) and if there is some family stuff going on, you can always unblock them for that.
BTW, to people that don’t like application updates, just block the applications, don’t block the person’s updates.
And to people blocking or unfriending people because they have different political views… what, you have no friends or family that you can relate to at all who disagree with you politically? I can understand if they post about it constantly, but just for liking a page for someone on the other side…?
Whoa, OP- you’re acting crazy. The only people I know who get all butthurt about people not commenting on their Facebook status shit are teenagers. They are also the only ones who constantly and instantly comment or like my shit. Seriously, chill out.
My second thought was: as someone else has already said, if you don’t have something nice to say, you don’t say anything. I don’t always comment on friends’ baby pictures because sometimes their baby ain’t all that cute. Sorry.
My third thought: maybe your posting lately has been viewed as a little too frequent for those that are in that 20% and they blocked you from their news feed.
I actually did a litmus test. You see, I had amassed quite a lot of facebook only friends for various reasons I won’t get into. I got tired of not having anything from my real friends. And as I had over 1000 friends, I didn’t want to go through and delete or hide people. So I made an announcement on my page once or twice a day for a month that I was closing that account, and adding a new one, and told people to add me there. On the new page, I added the few people I knew I wanted, and just let the rest come in. After a month, I finally posted a count down, and then closed out the account, changing the email on it and everything.
My only problem is that some of my old comments on people’s photos are missing, and thus their responses make no sense.
(You might not think it was less work, but it really was. I didn’t actually make the decision on who got to stay–they did.)
This. I have defriended exactly one person, an old childhood friend, for being a religious zealot incapable of spouting anything but rage-inducing idiocy.
-Gay people are like pedophiles
-Agnostics aren’t capable of real love
-People not born in the U.S. can’t be real Christians
-Science is a misguided belief system hostile toward religion.
In retrospect I’m actually embarrassed I friended this person in the first place. At the time, I was just perpetually angry every time I logged on. And that’s no way to live.
I see that people have babies, and I’m not terribly into babies as a general rule, but I think happy thoughts for those people and that’s got to be enough. I’m not going to coo over a baby picture because I don’t typically coo over live babies. Also, I want a child myself, so these posts are actually kind of painful for me to see, especially when they are popping up all over the place and I feel like the only person on the planet who has not yet procreated. **Cubsfan, **I’m genuinely glad you’re a new parent, so don’t take it personally if I don’t fall all over pictures of your child. I’m just being, well, me.
Gosh I would love to have 80% of my Facebook friends comment on or like one of my posts! Most of the time I’m lucky to get 3 comments and it’s usually the same 4 people who do so.
My criterion for taking someone off my Facebook is that I’m not interested in being friends with them anymore - that’s all.
I forgot to mention that I have a special category for people I’ve only added to be nice, so I don’t burn all my bridges with them. The people I know take Facebook quite seriously. Defriending them can come off as being more jerkish than never talking to them and hiding all their posts. And I’m likely to see them later, being in a small town.
I’ve unfriended exactly one person on Facebook, and that’s because he joined a Truther group.
Did Cubsfan ever respond to this thread? I think I saw him/her around on the board on another thread since then, but I don’t think I’ve seen any response in this one.
My husband has a Facebook page; I don’t. One of our nieces really got on his case for not commenting on something she posted/anything she posted/something like that, and he had to explain to her that he doesn’t check it that often and doesn’t treat it like it’s all that important. She was dumbfounded.
Given how spectacularly it’s backfired, I don’t blame him.
I de-friended some people who I knew from school but who ended up being religious freaks, and I just didn’t want to deal with being angry at their posts. What they say on their Wall is their business but I no longer wanted it to be my business.
Now, I generally don’t let people friend me unless I am truly interested in what they are up to these days.
I did add one other rule for myself…
My aunt was my FB friend and she was just annoying. Every status update was a total downer. She’d “threadshit” my status updates - my friends would be having a good time with their commenting and she’d come write something that made me go “what? huh? what planet is she on?”
I had to pull the trigger and delete her. I made up an excuse that I do not friend anyone who isn’t laterally in my peer group. School chums and cousins are fine. Aunts, uncles, parents, friends’ parents and children of friends are not allowed.
Unfortunately, my one cousin’s wife is a lot older than my “peer group” and she seems to be of the “I suck at Facebook” sort. I would so like to delete her but the family politicking is too great.
Also…with any FB thread, I am going to throw out the FB Purity Greasemonkey script. Get it. Use it. Love it.
Two people on my friends list have created accounts for their children - one a newborn and the other a five year old. I find this very disturbing.
That is very weird.
You think a FB status update counts as an official announcement worthy of note such that anyone who doesn’t respond is a terrible friend? Uh huh.
You’d fit in well here.
I guess I’m the odd man out here, but I am somewhat in agreement with the OP. If the people on my friends list don’t have enough interest to comment on a major life event, how interested would they be in my other status updates anyway? I would be doing them a favour by unfriending them.
It doesn’t necessarily mean that they are not my friends in real life - it just means that they are not the kind of friends for which Facebook updates are a good way of communication.
I especially loved the FBer who got bent out of shape that her demand for wedding gifts was re-posted on passiveagressivenotes.com.
That doesn’t make any sense. If they’re still you’re friends in real life and you’d be posting the status update anyway, why would you go out of your way to remove them from your FB friends? If they don’t see it, they don’t see it. If they do, they do. Who gives a shit?
Like others have said, if it’s some happy announcement, you don’t always want to be person 37 to post the same “congrats!” (or if it’s sad, person 37 to post the same “I’m so sorry! :(”). My god, people seem to take Facebook seriously. IT’S SRS BZNZ, YO.
I mean, for fuck’s sake, I love Facebook and sometimes I’ll go days without wanting to log in. I may miss a big announcement. Does it mean I’m an awful friend? I’d say no, it just means I missed it because it was posted online at a time I happened to miss it.