Much had been said about how everyone on Facebook is now connected by less than five degrees. I think what Facebook does is not much more than show that fact, a reflection if you will, of the many personal and professional connections we’ve made outside of the online social network. A research from Sysomos published last year showed similar results for Twitter.
Perhaps my use of Twitter and Facebook clouds my judgement somewhat but I find that Twitter allows me to connect with more people than Facebook does and those connections are much more meaningful and more valuable. As the saying goes, Facebook is for people you went to school with, Twitter is for people you wish you went to school with.
Honestly, I care little of the connections reflected on Facebook, I have little to no interest in the updates from people that Facebook shows me on its news feed. It’s not necessarily Facebook’s fault though that people I’m friends with on Facebook don’t post content that interest me, and I blame those who litter my news feed with stupid updates such as game requests.
Updates on Twitter on the other hand, are much more interesting to me because they bring new information, amusing stories, facts and discoveries and they made me appreciate the people who deliver those tweets more than those who post updates on Facebook.
Getting back to the research, if we go back a few more years, I bet we would see similar results for Friendster if such a research was done around that time. It’s not Facebook that brought connections closer, it’s the Internet. Facebook only shows it.
AuliaSays 