Friends vs. Facebook "Friends"

When social media first hit the scene in a big way, we had no idea the possible challenges that would come along with connecting to everyone we would meet; we just thought it was fun and exciting to collect friends and interact in a virtual space, not to mention stay connected as our lives naturally diverged from one another. However, as time has pressed on, social media is presenting social challenges (and opportunities!) that no one could have predicted when current popular platforms were in their infancy.

Shifting focus specifically to Facebook, the platform has some definite benefits - it provides a multifaceted venue to connect with current friends, while also providing us with a window to peer into the lives of those who we used to know, even if we only knew them for a very brief time. There’s no longer a need to sever ties, as Facebook allows us to feel connected with little to no actual personal relationship maintenance. Yet, with no personal relationship management, how is peering into the lives of acquaintances impacting the way we feel about ourselves? I have reflected on this question over nearly the last year and a half I have gone with a deactivated personal Facebook account, and  though my experience is unique to me, others may have experiences similar my own, which is why I’ve chosen to write about my journey and explain why my “friend” count on Facebook will plummet when I return to Facebook.

Before the days of remaining Facebook “friends” indefinitely, people made an effort to stay in contact, they ventured out, visited one another, they wrote letters and more if they wanted to nurture the relationship. While focusing on specific relationships, they lost touch with other people who had floated into, then subsequently out of their lives. It didn’t mean individuals didn’t care about the people with whom they lost touch, it was not one person’s fault they lost touch (or maybe it was, I’ll touch on this in another blog down the road), relationships simply faded away after priorities, jobs, and geographic locations changed. Before Facebook we were allowed to lose touch without anxiety or hurt feelings on either end. However, with Facebook, we are expected to remain “in contact” with anyone and everyone we have ever met ever, which is overwhelming and can carry personal and interpersonal consequences.

The impetus for deactivating my Facebook account stemmed from the unintentional pressures I felt while on Facebook from “friends” with whom I rarely, if ever, interacted with after our paths diverged. My Facebook feed was littered with stories including marriages, trips, growing families, and more, which was exciting news that I was eager to see from family members and close friends. However, I was seeing updates from a multitude of people I went to high school or college with and no longer have a relationship with, which when compounded one upon another made me feel somehow left out and caused me to perceive terrible shortcomings in myself, even though I should not have been ashamed or sad when reflecting on my own accomplishments - since graduating high school I have lived in a total of six states, including living in the two largest cities in the United States, I obtained a master’s degree, and am well on the way to a career I can be proud of. Hopefully, someday family will be in the cards, but for now I’m happy with what I’ve accomplished and I’ve done just fine on my own. Even considering my accomplishments, the social pressures I encountered on Facebook made me feel entirely bad about myself, so in October 2012 I deactivated my account.

Now that I’m faced with reactivating my personal Facebook account in order to maintain relationships with my close friends and see photos of their children, I am forced to reflect on the reasons why I deactivated in the first place and consider new reasoning for whom I should be allow to be my Facebook friend in order to avoid undue social pressures.

As I see it, there are six primary reasons we accept and remain “friends” with people on Facebook – some of them well intentioned and others not so well intentioned

1. The person is a member of your family or a close friend
The best reason to be “friends” with someone on Facebook is because you are actually connected to the person in real life. As a family member or a close personal friend, you have a vested interest in the course of the other person’s life and your relationship will withstand the test of distance and differing life goals. Whether you connect online or in person, you make them a priority, and these people should remain your friends.

2. We genuinely like the other person and consider them a friend, though they are not a close friend who knows us or has known us well in the past

Likely the primary reasons to remain “friends” with someone on Facebook is that the platform allows people to passively stay in touch should their paths ever cross again. As we go through life we collect these “friends” and we feel badly clicking a little box that says “unfriend” if we wish the person on the other end no ill will. What will they think of us? It is safer to simply allow the person to remain our “friend” even if we don’t talk and the information they post is irrelevant to our lives.

3. We live vicariously through the other person

The person you are connected with travels while you stay close to home or they are single and date a litany of people while you are faithfully married, or any other host of topics make you different and their life is interesting to you and you live vicariously through their posts and photos.

4. We feel badly unfriending someone, though we don't really know them

This is a silly reason, but a valid one. For some reason, some people seem to go through the rotary of every person they have ever met in their lives ever and request them to be their virtual “friend.” For whatever reason, we feel badly unfriending people, even if they are not our friend or barely an acquaintance. 

5. We think the person we are "friends" with is a train wreck

On the flipside of the above reason, this is a genuinely awful reason to stay connected to someone on Facebook, but many of us have done it. You know that one person who posts things so out of your realm of ordinary or acceptable that the content they post blows your mind just a little bit every time. For example, they are excited that their boyfriend just got out of prison, they post cursing rants at the parking authority every other day, or they are getting married for the fourth time in three years. Whatever this person is doing, their life makes us feel just a little bit better about our own, so why not remain “friends” so every once in a while you can take a peek and breathe a sigh of relief? It’s not right. In fact, it’s totally wrong, but people do it. Confession time… I’ve done it.

6. Facebook provides us with the latest gossip

It is human nature to want to be in the know. Facebook allows us to peer into the lives of people we were connected with in the past and gather only the information we want, “She gained weight since high school.” “She had a baby, I saw the photos on Facebook.” “I think so-and-so got divorced, her name changed when she was married and now it’s back to what it used to be!” If you can’t tell, gossip triggered on Facebook often surrounds women and isn’t necessarily fair.  

Of the reasons listed above, only reasons 1-3 are remotely valid and I have made the decision, that from this point onward, though it may not be popular, I’m going to make Facebook friendship decisions based on reason number 1. It hurts me to seemingly sever ties with people I care about among the other categories, but it is important for me to be vigilant in my efforts to maintain close friendships while also maintaining my own sanity. 

I apologize if you look at your friend feed and I’m no longer a part of it – you really shouldn’t miss me too much since I haven’t been a part of any Facebook feed for nearly year. However, if you notice, please do not take it as a slight. If we haven’t spoken since we graduated high school together or since we sat next to each other in that class in college, it may be time that we stop creeper stalking each other until our paths cross again – and I hope that they will! However, if we do interact in real life or online about shared interests and life, of course I hope we will remain friends – on and off of Facebook.

For those individuals who are in parallel industries including education and technology fields, I also have a professional social media presence where I engage in discussions about work and projects I'm excited about, along with posting content that is relevant to the lives of the students I work with and I am happy to connect with you on a professional level there.

For those who say, “Well how can we contact one another if we ever want to?” The answer to that is simple – Linkedin, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, other less invasive forms of social media where only information we are comfortable sharing with the general public exists and every aspect of our lives is not intimately on display for all to see, or we could exchange email addresses or phone numbers. I am very open to interacting with people from my past, but I think it is healthier in the absence of a genuine intentional friendship for boundaries to exist to avoid peering into the lives of one another.

Everyone has a Recording Device

The a couple weeks ago there was a newsworthy item coming out of an academic institution, but it certainly wasn't good news. I won't go into detail, but hockey helmets and sticks were everywhere while punches were flying among both players and coaches. With our mouths gaping open in the stands, all we could do is say, "Is this really happening?!" And about as long as it took us to question what we were seeing out loud, the event was posted on social media for the world to see.

Yes, my students and colleagues, everyone has a recording device and there is no escaping them.

It's difficult to keep one's professional online presence free and clear from every possible smudge that we could possibly encounter, but why fuel the fire and do something so outrageous in real life that can then be attributed to you online indefinitely? It is nearly impossible to remove your name from a viral online event.

The students from the incident I am referencing may pay consequences for years to come. A good many of these students will not play their sport professionally and may face challenges when finding that coveted first job after graduating. When they are in their final year of college and finish constructing their resume and present it to a future employer, that employer can turn around and say, "You were on X team in 2014? Were you a part of the xyz event?!" Better yet, they might not ask but may simply plug your name into a search engine and find out you were suspended for fighting.  That future employer is going to have to ask themselves, "Is this a person I want on my staff? Are they violent? Will they lose their temper and cause problems within the work environment?"

Is a mistake on the playing field going to cost you for your entire life? Probably not. However, it's an example of what can happen when anyone behaves poorly in the presence of others. To keep your professional online presence clean, don't say or do anything in public you wouldn't want attributed to you indefinitely online. You never know who might be watching, much less recording.

Prioritizing Platforms for your Professional Online Presence

I have written about needing to create a professional online presence and some may argue that they don't have the time to monitor and nurture their presence on every platform I have discussed. It's true that very few people have the time to be everywhere consistently, but there are some important things to remember when it comes to being active on on more than one platform.

Firstly, you have to decide which platform you will focus on the most. Your decision should hinge on any platforms that are standard for your chosen field. Your choice should also be impacted by the platform(s) you enjoy using the most. For me, I enjoy my time spend on Twitter, but my Twitter account is linked to other accounts, which is key.

After you decide on your platform of choice, make sure all other platforms are connected in some way to your platform of choice. I mentioned, my Twitter account is the most active and regularly updated. On my Twitter profile, I list my professional online portfolio subsequently has links to my LinkenIn, About.me, Facebook, Blogger, Tumblr, and Twitter - many of these platforms also link to one another. In addition, on my professional online portfolio there are links to platforms I manage, which are relevant to my career, including Pinterest, Instagram, and Google+.

If that still seems like a lot, remember that not all platforms require regular monitoring. For example, LinkedIn and About.me can be updated each time you change jobs and when you received a new award or have finished a critical project. The messaging feature on LinkedIn can also be forwarded to your regular email address so you won't miss an important message.

Despite how active you plan to be on each individual platform, it's important to claim your identity across many (if not all) of the most major platforms. Keep your name consistent to keep intruders from hijacking your online identity pretending to be you without your permission. Your online presence is sacred, the only way to ensure it's legitimacy is to be the person in control of content produced under your name.

Professional Online Presence Required

Only a decade ago a person having an “online presence” was nearly unheard of aside from the occasional myspace.com account, and even then we didn’t think of those profiles as a “presence.” With the availability and prevalence of social media platforms today, an online presence is expected and nearly unavoidable; thus creating an online presence you can be proud of and share with an employer is a necessity.

When hiring for a new position employers are going to seek out information about candidates online, so the information they see might as well be the information you, the candidate, want them to see. Current job applicants need to make information about their career easy to find in order for them to rise above their fellow candidates and increase their chances of successfully landing the job of their dreams.

When employers search for information on prospective employees, they have an expectation that they will stumble upon a Facebook profile, a Twitter page, or a LinkedIn account. The thing that employers don’t necessarily expect to find (and are happy when they do) is clear evidence of the accomplishments a candidate has had during their career and proof that the individual is continually making strides to improve and be known as a leader among their peers within their industry. The kind of employee who demonstrates dedication to their career will be an asset to a company and push colleagues to new levels of excellence.

Here are some very simple rules to follow when creating content for your professional online presence.

1. Write well and pay close attention to details

When you are posting online, digital lingo should be used sparingly (if ever) and proper English should be used whenever possible. For example, you should talk about the things you’ve done well and never talk about the things you’ve done “good.” Ask for multiple reviewers, friends and family, to proof read your work. If employers will be judging you, it’s best to ask those who love you to judge you first. 

2. Remain credible at all times

A quote by Mark Twain has hung in my home for many years, “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.” Just as you shouldn’t lie in real life, you should never lie online. Make sure your content is well written, while also being sure to represent yourself truthfully. Provide proof to your work including photos, link to articles written about projects in which you played a part, and links to charitable organizations where you volunteer, if your volunteerism can be verified should someone decide to do a reference check.

3. Document your experiences

If you do not have evidence to back up your efforts within your industry, create it. By all means, I do not mean you should fabricate ANYTHING, but take photos of the projects you do complete, ask colleagues for LinkedIn endorsements and recommendations, blog about a success you had at your or a new technique you’re using to accomplish objectives in your current position, or a host of other things. No one will document your experiences for you; it is up to you must be proactive in documenting your own professional successes and challenges to make you a credible candidate that stands out among the rest.

4. Observe industry standards

Always adhere to any standard set by your current employer or your industry as a whole. Do not post sensitive or confidential information online. Before posting, think “Would I want my current or future employer to read this?” If the answer is no, don’t post it.

5. Create content regularly

Cleaning up a professional presence during a job search is commendable, but what is impressive is evidence of regular posts. What makes a person credible online is a proven track record of posts and evidence of engagement across key platforms.

6. Be your own advocate

Promote your own posts – share them on multiple platforms and participate in conversations that interest you about your industry. Connect with other professionals – you never know how or when your paths might cross and they could be the greatest asset in obtaining the job of your dreams, but you’ll never know them if you don’t make a proactive effort to participate. For tips and ideas on what platforms to utilize, please view my blog post, Tools and Platforms for Creating your Professional Online Presence.

7. Keep your personal presence clean, too

Anything you say or do online can (and will) follow you. Just because you have one Twitter account for your job and another “private” account for your personal life, don’t think that the things you say won’t come back to haunt you. Whatever you do in real life, online or otherwise, has the potential to help or hurt you professionally – don’t let it hurt you.

In short, to be the dynamic and impressive prospective (or current) employee we wish to be, it’s important to have a credible professional presence online that is maintained regularly. Building and maintaining a professional online presence will demonstrate to an employer your proven track record and, while interviewing for a new position, it will be clear that you’re not just offering lip service when you talk about work experience – you have the evidence to back up answer.

Who knows, maybe if you build your professional presence online, you won’t have to search for a new job ever again. Instead, just maybe, new jobs will find you as a result of the networks you nurtured and the professional online presence you’ve created.