I'm a fan of privacy. Ok, you got me; I'm not a total fan or I wouldn't be using social media at all. However, I do have a large family and a few good friends who live outside a distance that allows us to meet regularly. Facebook and Google+ are great for letting us keep in touch, or at least feel we're a part of each others lives. I'm also open to new friends. What I'm not a fan off is vanity friends. You know, the profiles that have a hundreds of friends. While I'm pretty anti-social (or maybe I'm just too busy to maintain many meaningful friendships) I don't see how a person can realistically and honestly have 600 friends.
Facebook has privacy controls, but I'm still cautious about allowing people access to my information. Not just my profile information like my education, age, hometime etc, but information about me, as I am now; what I'm doing, what I'm feeling, if I'm at home or on holiday. By hving facebook friends I that aren't real friends, I open myself up to problems associated with having an open profile.
Another thing is I just don't want to have to read through a bunch of random peoples live. I prefer meaningful connections only. So to keep it meaningful I've got rules that are uesd to maintain my friends and contacts that I use for Facebook, Skype, MSN, Google+ (though it's circles changes things a bit :)), whatever else
1) If you ask, I'll add you as a friend / contact providing I've previously communicated with you. E.g. we met IRL once, or I know you online from some of the communities I'm a member of (eg atomic, atomicf1, iRacing)
2) If you don't talk to me or comment on my posts or articles etc. for 6 months, you get pruned. The only exception being is if you're a close relative: mother, wife, child, father, aunt, uncle, cousin, sister, brother, grandparent, or an 'in-law' variant of those. There's also exceptions for exceptional circumstances, like you're in afganistan fighting terrorists, or exploring the antarctic. You're not expected to be accessing social networking tools. Though I'll delete you if I didn't know this :)
It doesn't matter if we were best buds for 10 years. If you don't communicate with me, and me with you, you get pruned. I don't need 600 friends. I need a few good ones.
