Facebook - Social network vs. Social friendship

Sometime ago, I had a discussion regarding Facebook with my family during a family's dinner at the UiTM Shah Alam Hotel. We were there after fetching my eldest son from his UiTM hostel. The discussion started after one of my sons shared about one of his friends' opinions that in order to become Facebook friends, both parties need to know each other prior to being accepted as friends.

During the discussion, everyone at the table agreed that Facebook is an internet social network tool i.e. Facebook being one of the many virtual networks other than Twitter, LinkedIn, Blog and many others. We then discussed on the definition of social network. We also discussed on the merit of tagging friendship in Facebook as networking for friends that can be done virtually rather than physically.

I then posted a question to everyone, what is the difference between Networking and Friendship? We discussed several aspects. Among them, network is a lot looser in term of connection to friendship. Friendship of course requires a bit more knowledge of one another and most of the time; the sharing in friendship is a lot more open and can be intimate for some. Friends may also be restrictive in term of number as it is normally small circle. Network in the other hand is an extended friendship where there may be close friendship or just mere acquaintances relationship either directly or indirectly. For example, Ahmad is a close friend of Lim at their former college and via Lim, Ahmad knows Puvaneswary and Mary Pega who happened to be Lim's colleagues at the office. Network does not necessarily require in depth knowledge of one another's background, just mere common interest would be sufficient. The common interest can be hobbies, career or sports.

Right or wrong, most of Facebook's users still restrict their Facebook friendship to social friendship i.e. their day-to-day friends. This somehow restricts the benefit they can derive out of Facebook. Among the benefits from Facebook that one can maximise by having a wide network of friends beyond day-to-day friends are:

1. Sharing of common interest such as tour tips, cooking tips, gardening tips.


2. Sharing of uncommon information such as how to have a pokke Gecko farm i.e. rather than hunting for this wild lizard that is quite common nowadays, one can rear this expensive lizard for commercial profit


3. Business opportunities


4. Career opportunitiesGlobal Borderless and virtual friendship

Of course they are bound to be risk in virtual networking in term of exposing one's personal data to unknown recipients; however this can be controlled via Facebook functionalities and one's protective mind set. To safeguard my personal data profile for example, I will not provide my house address and telephone number in my Facebook account. The other measures that I had taken are

1. Restrict access of my Facebook wall to only my friends. Except for any statement that I don't mind the general public to know such as common discussion but I restrict on my personal or sensitive opinion.


2. I also restrict my photograph access to only my Facebook friends


3. I accept Facebook friends via stringent steps below.

There are several steps that can be taken when accepting Facebook friendship. I had devised my own and will usually use the following:

1. Look at the info wall of the requester - the info provided should be sufficient to create interest for me to accept the request. I will normally ignore a request from someone unknown that only provides that person's name and email on his or her info wall.


2. Look at the friends of the requester - there are mutual and non-mutual Facebook friends. Some of the requester's friends may be popular personalities and these popular personalities normally will accept any Tom, Dick or Harry's Facebook request. So it would be noteworthy to also check whether the requester also has other personal friends and how diverse are his or her friends. The diversed friends should also be people whom you would not mind to share your interest and opinion on Facebook


3. Look at the photos of the requester - some people do not put their own profile photo. It is still alright to accept their friendship as long as the requestor's personal info and circle of friends are not dubious and still strike your interest.

In conclusion, Facebook is just a tool for us to use wisely. Facebook add value to life in a manner that it provides benefits for people who are keen to socialise virtually. There are of course no full proof tips on how to utilise Facebook in a safe manner, however an instinct for survival would of course help. Enjoy and discover the infinite world of networking via Facebook.