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dling all this. It’s not. For every long-lost chum who reaches out
to me on Facebook, there’s a guy who beat me up on a weekly
basis through the whole seventh grade but now wants to be my
buddy; or the crazy person who was fun in college but is now kind
of sad; or the creepy ex-co-worker who I’d cross the street to avoid
but who now wants to know, “Am I your friend?” yes or no, this
instant, please.
It’s not just Facebook and it’s not just me. Every “social net-
working service” has had this problem and every user I’ve spoken
to has been frustrated by it. I think that’s why these services are
so volatile: why we’re so willing to flee from Friendster and into
MySpace’s loving arms; from MySpace to Facebook. It’s socially
awkward to refuse to add someone to your friends list — but
re-
moving
someone from your friends list is practically a declaration
of war. The least awkward way to get back to a friends list with
nothing but friends on it is to reboot: create a new identity on
a new system and send out some invites (of course, chances are
at least one of those invites will go to someone who’ll groan and
wonder why you’re dumb enough to think that we’re pals).
That’s why I don’t worry about Facebook taking over the Net.
As more users flock to it, the chances that the person who pre-
cipitates your exodus will find you increases. Once that happens,
poof, away you go — and Facebook joins SixDegrees, Friendster,
and their pals on the scrapheap of Net.history.
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