Are you my Facebook friend?

Posted by Greg Laden on February 18, 2011
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Are you? If not, you can click here and be my Facebook friend. I don’t need you to do that but it would be better if you did, just in case. It’s good for you, it’s good for me, really, you should do it. You need to do it. I don’t really need it but maybe you do. You should, don’t you think? Just click here.

Meanwhile,

Does Facebook Stress You Out?

The more Facebook friends people have , the more likely they are to feel stressed out by the site, according to a new study by Scottish researchers.

…

“The results threw up a number of paradoxes,” said Dr Kathy Charles, who led the study. “For instance, although there is great pressure to be on Facebook there is also considerable ambivalence amongst users about its benefits.”

Huh. Click here And here.

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Comments

  1. #1 Gypsy Assassin
    February 18, 2011

    This reminds me of the lines from Leaving Las Vegas. “Are you desirable? Are you irresistible? Maybe if you drank bourbon with me, it would help. Maybe if you kissed me and I could taste the sting in your mouth it would help.” (Then it gets a little rated R after that).

  2. #2 Pete Moulton
    February 18, 2011

    OK, Greg, I sent the request. We’ll see how stressed out you can get!

  3. #3 Jay
    February 18, 2011

    Request sent.

    So the goal of this is to stress Greg out as much as possible? How can we track the progress?

  4. #4 Greg Laden
    February 18, 2011

    You can probably see it in my facebook statii.

  5. #5 Jay
    February 18, 2011

    I find that my FB stress level is roughly proportional to the number of Whateverville game gift requests that I receive…

  6. #6 rob
    February 18, 2011

    Thanks for the friend request. I’ve been online all day. I’m not interrupting anything am I? Me and the voices in my head just having a little squabble, OK. Oh. It’s not easy getting friends. Do you know what I mean? I mean most people are real afraid to friend strangers. I mean you never know who you might friend. I mean I could be some crazed slime ball. I mean a real deranged, violent psycho. You know what I mean? I mean a guy who would rip out your heart and eat it just for pleasure. I’m talking about a total maniac! You know what I mean? DO YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN? Why aren’t we moving?

    Don’t you want to send me a friend request?

  7. #7 noel
    February 18, 2011

    Well someone sounds a little needy. I just joined FB a couple of weeks ago. It’s weird – all the chatter on my wall, some from people I hardly know or don’t know at all. One says, “I just need 4 more friends to have 500!”. Are we losing sight of the meaning of the word?

  8. #8 Greg Laden
    February 18, 2011

    Noel, I don’t think so. I think as a culture we lost sight of the term “friend” already. A Facebook Friend is a much a friend as many others previously called friend by a lot of other people.

    Nothing wrong with that, really. A “true friend” (or whatever you want to call it) knows where they stand in relation to their “true friends.”

    (Except when they don’t, of course.)

  9. #9 Spanish Inquisitor
    February 18, 2011

    Is a True Friend like a True Christian(TM)? Impossible to nail down?

  10. #10 Azkyroth
    February 19, 2011

    I haven’t joined Facebook. I’m just not interested in religion. :P

  11. #11 gwen
    February 19, 2011

    I like facebook and the ease in which I can keep up with family and friends all over the country. One thing still kind of creeps me out. I am ‘friends’ with many of the children of my friends and family members. Some of these children are quite young. Sometimes after leaving a kind word on the status of one of the children, one of their friends will send me a ‘friend request’. I don’t think it is appropriate. They and their families know nothing about me, and I do not want to encourage them to ‘friend’ people who are essentially strangers. One day, one of these ‘friends’ may try to take advantage of them…

  12. #12 peicurmudgeon
    February 19, 2011

    I think I’ma anomaly on facebook. Of the people I have ‘befriended’, I would recognize most of them on the street and stop to say hi, or have a coffee with. The few exceptions are people with the same, rather rare, surname as mine. Some of us have befriended each other even though we are scattered widely across the globe. These people I wouldn’t recognize, but I would gladly spend time with and get to know.

  13. #13 peicurmudgeon
    February 19, 2011

    I think I’ma anomaly on facebook. Of the people I have ‘befriended’, I would recognize most of them on the street and stop to say hi, or have a coffee with. The few exceptions are people with the same, rather rare, surname as mine. Some of us have befriended each other even though we are scattered widely across the globe. These people I wouldn’t recognize, but I would gladly spend time with and get to know.

    I also don’t befriend children. The updates on my wall can get fairly raunchy and personal. Definitely PG.