I took Geoff Fox’s new post to heart this afternoon and I spent over an hour deleting ‘friends’. I started the afternoon with 1209 friends on Facebook, and I’m down to 733 now. That is a loss of 476 friends.

But is it really a loss? Are the people that I “defriended” going to get upset at me? Chances are that they don’t even know what has happened.  (side note: It’s amazing to me that we took the noun “friend’ and now use it as a verb. Even dictionary.com says that the use of friend as a verb is rare, but my guess is it is catching on)

My criteria for being saved from the chopping block was simple: have I talked or hung out with you in the past 6 months or spent a considerable amount of time with you (ie High School or Mississippi) at some point. Otherwise, you got cut. So soooorry.

The reason that I downsized is a selfish one. I don’t want to be accountable for your actions. I don’t want to jeopardize my career because one of my ‘friends’ likes smoking pot in his or her Facebook picture.

I also had to laugh a bit when I was doing my deleting. During each defriended individual, a little box pops up and says “You are about to remove ______ as a friend. This action cannot be undone. ____ will not receive any notification.” Below is a screen shot of what it looks like. Ya I know, my Facebook is in Italian.

I really had a good feeling after I was finished. It was like I was cleansed of evil. I recommend everyone do this… but make sure I’m still your friend.