I scorn your Facebook "friendship"

Having firmly established that Facebook is better than MySpace, I must comment on something I feel warrants the attention of you Future-Phobics. It is the friend-collecting phenomenon, which was absolutely rife on MySpace and which you need to actively consider if you are to avoid it on Facebook.

Facebook is quite different from MySpace in that the connections you make are strictly "friend of a friend". In other words, it is not possible for anyone to request to become your Facebook "friend" unless they either have your email address, or they are already a "friend" of some friend of yours.

The problem is, all too often these friends of friends for some reason known only to themselves will send you friend requests, even though to be perfectly honest you are barely acquainted. In fact, let's be even more perfectly honest and say that you are actually NOT friends at all.

Now what do you do? Think carefully, do you really need a Facebook account packed with dozens and dozens of people, many of whom you do not know in real life, and have nothing to talk about with? Or do you want a Facebook profile that really is a reflection of your circle of actual, real-life friends and where there is a fighting chance you will have some benefit from the service?

I know what my answer is and I say, next time that "friend of a friend" sends you a request, politely press that "ignore" button. Trust me, they won't be offended. In fact, if I have correctly assessed the psychology of such people, chances are they won't even remember they sent the request...