Facebook Friends Gluttony – Is It Helping Or Harming You?

Humpday it is.
This has been a subject of research for the past two years due to the explosion of social networking websites ( Twitter, Facebook). In actuality, the trend of friend gluttony began to transpire with Myspace a few years prior, along with it’s subsequent decline in market dominance, and analysts have conducted much research into the reasons why this trend of friend gluttony occurs, as well as its effects on a business and personal level.

I just read an interesting and informing article on the CNN website regarding Facebook Comments, and it is a part of a series entitled Netiquette, in which experts are exploring common gripes and emerging trends regarding online social media communications.

It appears that the services have become intertwined with everyday life and culture, and rules of engagement are now being implemented. Facebook saw fit from the beginning to set a friends list limit of 5,000 at the maximum, and there have been plenty of attempts by users to get them to increase the limit in a fashion similar to Myspace and Facebook as limitless friends requests are what individuals have become accustomed to.

With the whole privacy/security fiasco, they have now made a move to create an option which allows users to only accept requests from individuals that they known outside of the web, which denies requests from individuals automatically that do not fit a certain criteria.

The inside scoop is in regards to self serving narcissism and self absorption, in which the tendency to glutton friends is said to be a result of. According to experts, individuals who behave in this manner tend to have many shallow relationships and the quality of their relationships decline as the quantity of friends and associates that they keep increases with a tendency to begin to equate self worth according to the amount of individuals a person is or wishes to be known by, as opposed to the quality of relationships with others.

The researchers found that the number of Facebook friends and wallposts that individuals have on their profile pages correlates with narcissism. Buffardi said this is consistent with how narcissists behave in the real-world, with numerous yet shallow relationships. Narcissists are also more likely to choose glamorous, self-promoting pictures for their main profile photos, she said, while others are more likely to use snapshots.
Science20.com Article Link

My personal stance is, that it seems irrational to add one thousand individuals to a friends list in an attempt to gain feedback from ten at the maximum, and if a majority of the individuals added or requested are of the same thinking, the ratio of response will decrease. If it is a business venture, a greater number would perhaps be more reasonable, which would create a demand for Fan Pages/Profiles, yet again, business is providing service to others as opposed to gaining self service at the expense of others.

In non scientific terms, the experts are quoting the social media popularity boom as a “Tallest Midget In The World Content” in which each small one seeks to be the biggest of the small one bunch.
In closing, my two cents would add up to equate to the following words to the wise.

Selfishness Leads To Helplessness, &
Being Greedy Leads To Being Needy.
WORDS RHYME FOR A REASON!

On a lighter note, ass long as it is fun, and is not costing you valuable time and is harmful to others, I say to have at it, and just be sure to question if it is really getting you the satisfactory results that you desire.

A different perspective to consider.