Friday, January 21, 2011

Is Facebook working for you and your 702 friends?

Twice now in the last 3 weeks, I have noticed that some friends of mine on Facebook had missed wall posts that I and others had posted, of more or less an important nature. I also noticed that both of these people have 500+ "friends" on Facebook.

Pondering the meaning of the words "social networking," I wonder how either of these people - who seem to be relying on Facebook for the "networking" more than the "social" - are finding Facebook works for them.

I admit that part of my dismay is based on the fact that neither of these people - who are indeed what I would consider friends - have commented on the fact that my mother was rushed to the hospital and came very close to death over last weekend (we were advised to gather the grandchildren for their final goodbyes.)

One of them, a woman, sent me a series of texts yesterday morning that clearly showed she had no clue. She was making some banal inquiries as to where I was living now and about the status of my relationship with Mr. Y.

Yo, yo, where have you been, woman?

So ... I really have to wonder what benefit one can get from a Facebook with probably a few hundred status updates/hour whizzing by.

I sometimes find it hard to keep up with the status updates from my 198 or so "friends," but I do make the effort, every day.

Spreading yourself too thin seems to be the norm these days ... both of these people are looking for jobs and are not having a huge amount of success. I wonder if one or more of the Facebook posts they missed could have been about the job they could have secured?

It happens. I know I posted about at least one job, passing along information sent to me ... anyway, here's hoping everyone is warm, dry and reasonably happy.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just think. Those quarters probably are enough to pay the salary of the folks who collect them, count them, deposit them, and make the annual reports. Net gain to Gloucester: 0

Anonymous said...

Gillian, this whole social networking phenom is as bizarre as it is interesting.

One of your "friends" never inquired about your mom, even tho anyone who read your FB posts knew how gravely ill she was and how concerned you and ypur sibs were.

But that's not as bad as the young woman in Britain who posted her farewells on FB and stated her intention to kill herself, and none of her FB "friends" did anything, even those who lived close by. By the the time someone finallt thought to check on her several house later, it was too late. The young girl was dead.

This is a strange world we live in today.

And anon, I wouldn'y minimize the amount of money ALL those qarters bring into Gloucester.

You've obviously never worked in an arcade.

My family's next door neighbors at Seabrook Beach owned, and still own, the arcade on the Hampton Beach Casino and another called Playland further up the Boulevard.

They are millionaires many times over, thanks to all those pennies, nickels, dimes, and in more recent years the multiple quarters people pump into foolish machines and games to sate their need to be entertained and swindled.

I am sure the city of Gloucester sees a tidy gain in revenue from the quarters that flow into all those meters day in and day out, thru the year- especially in the period between Fiesta at the end of June and Labor Day. A tidy gain indeed.

Alfee said...

Whether its 500 friends or 100, it depends on how often people login into their Facebook accounts. I do have a number of Facebook friends who, like you say, oddly miss announcements on the Walls of other friends. And its just down to not being bothered to really read the Wall feeds regularly.