I commented there, saying that I was closing my personal Facebook account (I keep the diary here). It's both a personal choice and an experiment.
Let me answer here then, since it's a little too long to be posted as a comment.
You are asking me several questions here... Could my age influence my social media usage, are my friends all around the world, can I keep track with all of them...
I am not a grumpy old man... yet. I may get there at one point, but today I am twenty-seven years old, to say, I still qualify for the "Kid" status (I think the day you don't is when you can't find many people who are twice your age). It probably did influence my use of the Internet. I began using it in 1998, when, in my country, it was not really popular yet and , quote my parents, too expensive to use it often.
I am thus used to many more way of communicating other than Facebook. Email, Bulletin boards, Blogs, Chat rooms, I've seen them grow as a happy user. I've had meet-ups and real life fun with many of the people I met that way, some of which I still can contact today.
Are my friends all around the world?
Definitely yes. I am an expatriate (to be precise, I'm a thrill-seeking self-exiled), I live in "the other end of the world" and tend to travel quite often, for various reasons. I have friends mostly in Indonesia, Singapore and France.
Can I keep track with them?Now that's the tricky question. First of do I want to? Then, let's think a minute about who my friends are. And by that I mean my real friends, the ones who would share joy and pain with me, an who would kick my butt to the curve if I turned full emo.
I know a person in Singapore, let's call her J. I only have J's phone number. Why? She works in a shop. Every time I come to Singapore, I show up at her shop totally unannounced and ask around. J then takes a day of leave and we spend it telling each other stories. I would do the same for J. The phone number? We rarely need it.
J is a real friend.
So who do I call a friend? Actually, people you don't need to keep in touch with in fear of being forgotten. People who stay with you, and I mean "in your heart" even if you don't show up. And I do the same for them.
Acquaintances? Tons. The whole street where I live and around. The crew of various cafe, food-courts, shops. I meet them everyday, and if want to share something with them, we have a sit and a tea.
Now, all these people have a strong emotional value to me. They are part of my everyday life, as much as my room is. But no, I will never have the same experience on a social website as I have face to face. On Facebook, they flood me with quizzes, Farmville statuses, tag me on silly pictures. Facebook makes me hate them (well, for a minute or two).
Then again, if I am not ready to tell someone face to face something I would post as a Facebook status, that person has nothing to do with me. Or wait... maybe I just want to chose what I share. Yes yes you can make groups on Facebook. My friends are so diverse that I would probably need a relational database to know how to share things the will interest them.
So, the answer is, no I don't keep track with them on Facebook,
because I don't need to.
Am I "plain silly" ?
I may sound condescending (tends to happen when I try being "polite" in English, not my native tongue), but I do not think I am, or my decision is, plain silly.
As a matter of fact, I do know that networking is extremely important from a professional point of view. That is why I will re-create a persona entirely dedicated to research and networking on Facebook.
Facebook is not the ultimate solution to having and making friends. It's a platform. The Internet is a platform, Life is a platform. You're on it, or you aren't, sometimes you're forced to (not really into ending my days lately), sometimes you can chose. But in all cases, you're free to use it as you wish. I wish to use it as a professional networking tool, and keep my private life out of it, just like many people keep their personal and professional emails/phone numbers separate. Just like, in life, you wouldn't invite your boss for dinner with a friend of yours who has totally opposite views on mostly everything.
Now my turn to ask you, what are your friends for you?You sound like you have a lot of Facebook friends. I would be glad to hear about your experience. What do you really share with them? Would everyone of them (ok, would the two third of them) take your call if you needed something at 3.30 in the morning?
And now, a random thought: Kindness is rarer than you think. More expensive than you think.It's easy to be kind online. It engages you to nothing. It looks free, and it's a win-win situation, you give "free love" and you receive "free love" . Twitter is a good example, with a very high ratio of "You're all awesome" tweets. If I want to be an ass both to the tweep and myself, I can go and ask "And why am I awesome, please, detailed answer?". Both of us will end up disappointed.
Yet, this form of kindness is expensive in time. You have 1000 friends? If you want to really engage, meaningfully engage, with all of them even online, it will cost you a lot of time. Some people make it a full time job.
You don't have time for meet-ups, I don't have time to un-tag the silly picture. We prioritize different behaviors and, as a person, I feel that human contact, even with fewer people, is much more meaningful than letting hundreds of people know I like the last Mashable article. I am ready to give away my time for things and people I find meaningful, I don't consider my friends as a batch ( I'm not saying you do though).
I just spent approximately thirty minutes of my time answering you. I don't think this kind of action would qualify for adding me on Facebook and, time by time, commenting on my status. I wouldn't need that, because I don't think it build any real trust. What I would enjoy though, is a real reply, and a notice on my email next time you visit my city, because I will be glad to treat you for a coffee.
