Nov 6 2010 update:
This article just became much more relevant after Facebook introduced the Facebook Friendship Page feature on Oct 29, 2010.
Many, if not most, Facebook users have more friends on their Facebook Friends list than are good for them. Having more Facebook Friends means more people are watching you. There more people to waste your time, even if just having to sift through their updates to find ones from people you care about. There are also more people who could use something on your profile against you in some way, even if it’s just gossip, possibly from misunderstandings or unintentionally. We’re not even talking about potential creeps and malicious people here, who you don’t know well but had casually added as Facebook friends over time.
On a different topic, there are all kinds of Facebook memes, or trends, going on all the time. Facebook tagging is big. Facebook notes get passed along. There was that 25 Things You Didn’t Know About Me thing that only helped making your ID easier to steal. Then there were the baby photos or retro photos trend that also helped in the case.
So how’s about putting the two together for something useful?
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A challenge to remove 5 Facebook Friends and pass it on!
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These would be “friends” in the loosest sense of the word, of course, not any real friends. I don’t think most people need any help to do this challenge if they want to take it up. That’s how frivolous I think the Facebook Friends thing has become for most Facebook users. However, if you need help or want to do a more serious purging, check out some of my criteria for identifying Facebook Friends you can remove without a lot of consequences.
I took up my own challenge, of course, and went way over 5.
Can you?
If you don’t take the challenge, maybe just ask yourself, can I remove 5 Facebook Friends from my list? It’ll give you an idea of the state of your Facebook Friends list to where it maybe should be.
If you can remove 5 Facebook Friends from that thought experiment, maybe you ought to reconsider, especially now that you know you can. It’s just some clicking and scrolling now. 🙂
Or try it Facebook tagging style! (obviously you can’t tag these friends’ profiles, but you can tag and type in their names)
Facebook friends dumped tagging meme
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Other Facebook issue posts on my site:
Which Facebook Friends Should IÂ Remove?
“Study” on Facebook Narcissism and Insecurity not REAL Research
A Few Thoughts on Facebook Friends (and some polls)
How to Cancel or Retract Friend Requests on Facebook… and Why?
The Prejudices and Privacy Perils of Facebook Quizzes
How to Get Rid of Your Facebook Past
25 Things For Facebook You Can’t Steal My ID With
25 Things You Gave on Facebook to Help Get Your IDÂ Stolen
Una GuĂa de Netiqueta Práctica para Facebook
A Practical Facebook Etiquette (Netiquette)Â Guide
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Reading Level: 7.1
Digital Citizen 
Haha I love this challenge! I’m definitely going to try it out
Thanks! And good luck! Fun blog you’ve got, too!
If you want to play HARD MODE try this: remove as many friends as you possibly can without losing any IRL friends. (hint: delete all your exes, if you have any, and half of your facebook problems will disappear overnight)
IRL = in real life. That’s a good game to play some time. Thanks for the comment! 🙂
I removed like 200 people.
I often find more and more people to remove because, one, I don’t know them, two, never use their facebook, three, not friends with them any more, four, just don’t want them there, or five, a mix of all of that.
I find new people to delete about everyday.
I am on many facebook groups (like KUC, it’s an Asian thing), and you will get MANY friend request because you can interact, but if they add me and never talk to me, I just delete them after about a week-month.
Right now I have 426 friends, and could probably lower it to about 200. But some of these people are good friends also in REAL life, but never interact with me on facebook. I am actually trying to make it go into the 300’s, I guess I’ll see if I can do it (which I know I can, removing people goes so fast!)
All those reasons are great. But I hope you’re not necessarily doing the adding in the first place then for most of these people if you end up deleting that many. That’d be like inviting work for yourself. You must be pretty good looking and/or popular if people are constantly adding you to FB that you have to remove them all the time. 🙂
I don’t add people I do not know, unless I know where they are from…… Say like this,
I am on a facebook group, and I interact with someone, say Indonesia (which is true, a lot), I will not send THEM the request, but if they send me the request, I am happy to accept. But if we lose contact or don’t talk anymore, I just remove them after waiting a while since I don’t know them in real life.
I don’t add people who I may , say someone in high school (cause I’m not, I am going into high school now), though I know of the person, I don’t personally know them, so I keep the request pending in the case I meet them, don’t, or don’t like them if I do meet them.
Haha, thanks. Many girls say I am cute, but not the reason they add me (I would think :p). Many of my friends on my facebook are my language exchange partners that I have met on another website (lang8) for language learners. I have made good friends from S. Korea, China, Taiwan, and Japan, and those are the people I REALLY stay connected with, even though I do not know them in real life. (If I get a request from someone from any of those countries I will accept automatically because I know they are from the language website I use)
Oh, and I can remove so many people because I USE to accepts requests from people I don’t know, now not anymore.
I feel like I am forgetting something~ Well, I don’t know. ~^_^~ Have a nice day 🙂
Sounds like you’ve got a complicated, but excellent system. Thanks for sharing!