One of the cool things about the spread of social media is the way you are able to interact with your classmates. My generation is lucky because if you need to get ahold of someone from your class, usually you can hop on Facebook, look them up and shoot them a message.
Therefore I wasn't terribly surprised when I received an email saying my pharmacy school had started up a Facebook group for our class. It makes sense when you think about it because we're all embarking on this journey together. I believe the majority of schools do something of this nature.
In any case virtually my entire class is in this group. A few people have posted questions on where to live, what the weather is like and so on.
But here is where the fun starts. I have had people from my class start to add me as friends on Facebook already.
Now I am not a bashful person. I've shared my testicle story with virtually everyone I know. Despite this, I am not willing to randomly open up my life to people I have not only never met, but never spoke with.
It seems highly strange that one person, let alone multiple people, would randomly choose to add someone like that.
I come from a very small town (I graduated with ~70 people) so I know the dynamics of seeing the same small group of people day in and day out. In many ways, it can be a not terribly fun experience and you learn to value what little privacy you can ascertain.
Because of this, I'm not 'friending' anyone from my class right now. I don't know who they are and they don't know who I are. We can meet during orientation in the fall and go from there.
Anyone else find this perplexing?
8 comments:
I hate facebook.. there is nothing private about it.. That's all I have to say about this!!
I'm pretty conservative when it comes to "friending" people on facebook. I pretty much limit it to people I know from work or life, and people they know who play farmville (yes, I'll admit it, I play, lol). Basically, I've made it a policy not to friend anyone who's not a friend of one of my friends. Even then, if I get a weird vibe, I don't friend them.
I don't blame you for not wanting to jump right in before you meet anyone. It seems weird to me too.
When I started undergrad at a small private school, almost 100 of the ~500 people in my class added me before we were even moved in! And the worst part was that many of them recognized and greeted me by name on move-in day... Creepy!
I only friend people I know. But, many people in my class/pharmacy school do not have facebook, because of the professional stalker aspect... I even got in trouble once because someone screen-printed my status (I was annoyed about a reminder to complete an assignment that came out after the deadline...) and gave it to that particular teacher... That resulted in me deleting most of the pharm students I had friended because they were people I had spoken to once. So, yeah, be conservative. :)
Until I'm your friend, I'll only social network with you in LinkedIn. Facebook is for people I know (and like, even :p )
Can't you hide your profile from searches? That way you can avoid the awkwardness of being friended by people you don't know.
MD - Personally I don't mind having people be able to find me. I've gotten in touch with a lot of people I otherwise would have.
But yes you can hide it if need be. It wouldn't make much of a difference in this case though since we're all in the same FB group.
Facebook friend =/= friend. There is nothing wrong with friending someone who has something in common with you. In this case, they're your future classmate. Don't overanalyze the situation because it is seriously a non issue.
Post a Comment