A few days ago, I read an article over at ReadWriteWeb from a study at Pew Internet that shows that more Facebook users are defriending, the question is why?
Well I've been thinking about this and as a Facebook user myself for the last few years now, there are two reasons that come to mind:
1. Privacy: More and more people including myself are learning about online privacy and what we say online is public, NOT private. So in using the Facebook settings, you can publish posts, photos, links and more to public, friends only or custom and I believe that many users are posting to friends only and being very selective of who they friend on Facebook. A good example would be publishing family photos on Facebook. You don't want everyone to see pictures of your children, your niece, nephew or grandchildren. I have a nephew and I don't want to share photos with everyone.
2. Facebook games: When I joined Facebook a few years ago, I also joined the free Facebook game movement including Zynga's games including CityVille and FarmVille. In playing those games, you need to spend real money and/or get more neighbors and until late last year, the only way to add more neighbors was to friend people on Facebook and then add them the game like FarmVille.
But recently, many game users including myself have been leaving the games and moving on and now that leaves you with tons of friends on Facebook that you only interacted with them is through Farmville or another game. Now I would say that many on Facebook are doing the same thing including myself as they are forced to go through there entire friends list and decide whether or not to keep them or defriend them.
There was also another question, "Have you ever posted anything online including on Facebook that you regretted later?" Simple answer is yes. I have written a few posts or comments on Facebook that I regretted later as well as have gotten me into trouble. Of course I meant no harm in posting them, but that's not the way a few turned out. Other times, it was me just opening my mouth and saying too much. I would say more people around fall into that category as well.
Well I've been thinking about this and as a Facebook user myself for the last few years now, there are two reasons that come to mind:
1. Privacy: More and more people including myself are learning about online privacy and what we say online is public, NOT private. So in using the Facebook settings, you can publish posts, photos, links and more to public, friends only or custom and I believe that many users are posting to friends only and being very selective of who they friend on Facebook. A good example would be publishing family photos on Facebook. You don't want everyone to see pictures of your children, your niece, nephew or grandchildren. I have a nephew and I don't want to share photos with everyone.
2. Facebook games: When I joined Facebook a few years ago, I also joined the free Facebook game movement including Zynga's games including CityVille and FarmVille. In playing those games, you need to spend real money and/or get more neighbors and until late last year, the only way to add more neighbors was to friend people on Facebook and then add them the game like FarmVille.
But recently, many game users including myself have been leaving the games and moving on and now that leaves you with tons of friends on Facebook that you only interacted with them is through Farmville or another game. Now I would say that many on Facebook are doing the same thing including myself as they are forced to go through there entire friends list and decide whether or not to keep them or defriend them.
There was also another question, "Have you ever posted anything online including on Facebook that you regretted later?" Simple answer is yes. I have written a few posts or comments on Facebook that I regretted later as well as have gotten me into trouble. Of course I meant no harm in posting them, but that's not the way a few turned out. Other times, it was me just opening my mouth and saying too much. I would say more people around fall into that category as well.
