

Ask HN: What % of friends on Facebook are friends? - fishspin

I am a lonely nerd. I go on to Facebook and find people with 300 friends. How big % of those are anything close to real friends do you think?<p>I see a lot of people having contacts that are just like "went to the same high school and probably didn't ever say many words to each other".<p>I still find it depressing though but at the same time inspiring.
Depressing because it made me realize how lonely I am but inspired because it makes me think I have to do something about my situation. I want friends, I don't want to be alone.<p>But I'm not someone that you like 5 mins after meeting.
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baguasquirrel
It's a mixed bag. I know plenty of folks in college who were good at mining
connections. Everyone made "friends" with them because it was thought these
kids would "succeed". These were the folks who could rack up 600 connections,
but we all knew that they weren't friends with all those people.

I personally straddled that line myself, though in a different way. Being a
leader of any student organization is likely to boost your friend count by
around 100, and I had held important positions in two. But at the end of the
day, that's not how many close friends you have.

Demographics can also make a difference. If you went to a big high school--
say 800 kids per class --you'd probably chit-chat with around 200 other kids
on a regular basis. I had friends who did events with other schools in
upstate, and that kicked up the contact list even more. Things like that can
inordinately inflate your friend count on FB. But again, you were probably
only close to maybe twelve of all those kids you knew from high school.

In all, I feel that Facebook was a tool to keep track of all the people you
met in college (while you were still there). After you leave school, it
becomes a tool to keep in touch with them occasionally. The other major use
seems to be procrastination and banter. By no means is it a true count of how
many friends you have.

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yan
About 80-90% of the people that are my Facebook friends are what I'd consider
real friends. As in, if I saw them on the street I'd come up to them and start
a conversation without feeling awkward or mentioning when we last saw each
other. Then again, I have ~180 friends, not like 500+ that some of my friends
have.

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makecheck
I'm not sure how good an indicator the overall count is. For one thing, you
might not even find everyone you know on Facebook.

I figure there are two ways to use these sites. One, you could connect with
everyone you've ever known, regardless of how well you know them (and end up
with 300 "friends", most of whom are really just "acquaintances"). Or two,
judiciously invite the people you actually care about and/or are likely to see
anytime soon. I choose the latter, whether it's Facebook or other sites like
LinkedIn.

With a short list, it's easier to find the people you're likely to want to
talk to in the near future. Plus, you then receive only limited spam about the
mundane details of other people's lives. :)

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adatta02
<disclaimer> I'm pretty drunk </disclaimer> So what happens when you graduate?
is it proper form to go through and un-friend everyone? Or do you just let the
connections sit around stale?

And then to add to the confusion my LinkedIn social graph is wildly
disconnected from my Facebook social graph. When do I de-friend? When do I
only network "professionally"? Why am I even on a social network?

</drunk>

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buugs
>But I'm not someone that you like 5 mins after meeting.

Change your attitude and youll be a better friend, and rather than spending
time on the computer pulling the woe is me story just go out and meet people,
someones bound to like you as a friend.

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omarchowdhury
Good God get a hold of your self man.

