The Student Room Group

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Remember its about the quality of your friends, not the quantity.

If you have 10 best friends, and someone has 1000 random friends that he/she never talks to, then surely you have it better somewhat?

I have 43 friends on facebook...and 212 on myspace, just cos i have more than 200 on myspace doesnt mean I talk to them all, most add me from meeting me once or so, some of which may have been bands/people adding everyone...

Basically, the number of friends on these sites doesnt mean anything
As long as YOU like your friends, it doesn't matter who they are or how many.

I don't even have a Facebook account, imagine the horror!
Reply 42
I'm slightly surprised by the number of issues that arise involving facebook and consequently made a thread about them on TSR.
Reply 43
I'm just like you OP. I only have about 20 or so people on my Bebo account, and some other people I know have 100+. You'll find thought that people who have 100+ friends don't actually speak to half of them anyway. Some people from my old school added me on Bebo/Facebook, and I've never spoken to them or vice versa since being added. They were purely aquaintences. As others have said, they may just be adding randomers, as I get a lot of friend requests (particulary on Bebo and Myspace) for people i've never heard of in my life. I doubt any of these people are close to every single friend on their account. They are probably only close to a hand full of them. Like my friend said, a lot of them add people purely to make it loook like they have loads of friends, which I think is really lame myself.
Reply 44
Myspace is very fake, it's an opportunity to project your personality in a way you can't in reality. But, people take that opportunity to make themselves appear popular and choose sexy people as their top friends etc.

People probably look at my myspace and think i'm fake too, whereas i know *most* people on my friends list, and my top friends are actually some of my good friends...apart from one of them.
Reply 45
cant say i've ever thought that myself. i'm an ugly bastard with an "ordinary degree" (as in, not honours) and i wouldn't someone to look at me on it and think i was "successful" or a "loser" as it's not really important lets be honest. i've only 3 friends on facebook but i only signed up recently and don't really use it as much as bebo where i have 40 something of my real life mates, old school chums and a couple of net friends.

guess it depends what you use the sites for. if its an e-penis or popularity contest for some then good for them. noticed this on bebo especially where randomers seem to be on a "friend quest" just so they can tell their (probably few) real mates they have a 1000 friends on site. i'd hope most people use it for a laugh to post some photos and leave the odd comment for chums and nothing more.

facebook seems to be for the slightly more mature crowd but i've found it a bit cumbersome to use (and i have an IT degree lol). bebo is more for the teenagers but it's pretty big in the UK and ireland so a lot of people i know are on it and it's a bit simpler to get the hang of though technically it isn't as powerful as facebook is.

here's the killer. my bebo friends list includes both my mother and my father. this is the height of confidence in ones self and of complete loserdom in one swoop. as i left kevin and perry teenage angst years long ago and my parents are actually cool (as in, all my mates would invite them out for a blast in town) i reckon it's nearly acceptable in the 00's

yes i'm rambling. kthxbai
Reply 46
Oh Jesus does it matter? Most of them are probably just loose acquaintances anyway. On MySpace, I have well over 100 friends, it doesn't mean that I actually speak to them on a daily basis. Even if I did, does it make me some kind of superior human being? Something like a Facebook profile is about the silliest possible way of judging someone.
I've just had another case of it. I guess it's when I see people from school looking so full on and grown up and popular and together. Makes me feel like ****. Like I haven't progressed. Also as an aside I feel like they've gained social confidence, felt that after re-meeting a mate from school, and that I'd lost it.
On facebook I'm a member of a group called "I don't talk to 90% of people on facebook anyway". 'Nuff said, methinks. I could easily delete my facebook although I tend to message people over it (my phone's broken).

Ditto the many, many comments about quality over quantity too.
Reply 49
naivesincerity
I've just had another case of it. I guess it's when I see people from school looking so full on and grown up and popular and together. Makes me feel like ****. Like I haven't progressed. Also as an aside I feel like they've gained social confidence, felt that after re-meeting a mate from school, and that I'd lost it.


Theres nothing grown up or together about posting on a silly social networking site. Its just a bit of fun for most of us; posting a couple of comments on your mates pages and putting up some pics. Some people spend hours per day adding new friends and putting up set up pictures that make them look popular. Bebo is the biggest in Ireland and I do go on it but really you have to remember that its all pretend. Its real life that matters :smile:
I doubt people with 75+ or whatever friends on facebook/myspace are good friends with them all... I have roughly about 100 on each and Id only say about half are people I regularly speak to... although to be fair I would never add someone who I wouldnt at least say hi to if I saw them out and about!
Reply 51
I've realised that you can have 100000000000 friends and still be lonely, or you can have 1 friend and have everything you need. I have a really big circle of people who I hang out with and can call friends, but only a very, very few of them do I really care of about or know they really care about me and when you find someone like that then you know its a friend you need to work at keeping, all the others wil come and go continuously.
Reply 52
Research has been done on this and it's come up with a number called Dunbar's number - 150 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number). Basically, on average people have 12 close friends, and then they're friends with their friends which is basically their social network. So, people may have 150 friends (I'm inclined to believe this is true as I have about this number on my Facebook, as do a lot of my friends), but only a small percentage of those are close...
naivesincerity
anyone get my drift?

I know EXACTLY how you feel! I used to feel exactly the same about MySpace - everyone having millions of friends, pictures of everyone hanging around at seemingly MySpace-organised events having a great time, and I felt so lonely it was unreal. I also knew that if I had a MySpace I'd be anxious if anyone was gonna put me as a 'top friend' and people would think that my 'top friends' were strange unrequited choices etc. and so I made it my mission in life to hate MySpace and it was just like my thing - hating MySpace was my hobby. But relatively recently I realized that it wasn't MySpace I hated - MySpace brought out parts of me that I didn't like to look at, and that's what I hated. Now I realize that these are long-running issues that I've just brought right up to the surface, and now I'm trying to deal with them - I know that as soon as I do, I'll be a much healthier, happier and more successful person in every aspect of life :smile:

Sorry if I've whittled on about me-me-me, but as soon as I read your thread I knew I just had to post.
Oh for God's sake. Facebook is not the real world. Go outside, spend time with your real friends and stop wasting your life getting depressed by a bunch of meaningless profiles. :creep:
Reply 55
shinyhappy
I have bloody hundreds of facebook friends, and you're all quite right that most of them mean jack-all as real friendships. I have maybe 50 or so from my old school, who it's nice to see how they're doing, and maybe message once in a while, but only maybe five or six of my closest school friends who I keep properly in touch with.
...
Then there's the fact that pretty much everyone at my uni has facebook, and people often add each other after only meeting very briefly. I've got to admit, that out of vanity, I'll accept pretty much anyone I've met who adds me. I draw the line at complete strangers though, that's just bloody weird.

Agree completely with this (we're at the same uni, so I guess it's just one of those Ox things), and seriously facebook means so little, it's amusing. Though I'm surprised at how much i judge people on what their facebook is like!

Gman1617
however the way you can tell how popular you are is how many times you've been tagged, the fact that ppl want to take pics of you and then can be bother to put your name on the bottom of it.
This made me laugh so much :rofl:

tesh
The thing is,a person with 300,friends on facebook will probably not recognise half of them if they met them face to face,they just add to get their friend count up.

Sorry, I have to dispute this. I would be able to name all of my fbook friends. But I think that's more to do with me exceptionally good with names. And I think people at the same uni add eachother to keep in touch through knowing what they're doing. And it's always interesting to see what friends you have in common!

I always say that the amount of friends you have on facebook is inversely proportional to the amount of friends you have in real life. It's just a bit of fun, and I know for a fact that even the people that look like they have great friends and a great social life on facebook aren't 100% happy.
Reply 56
This is the kind of stuff you loose sleep over:eek: what a waste of time.
Well it is a waste of time. no I don't lose sleep over it. It was a more an abstract question really.

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