I've had my own Facebook page since the dawn of high school Facebook in I think 2006. Back then, Facebook profiles could only be obtained if you were invited by a student at your school who had a page. Sometimes I wonder who was the origin of Zionsville's Facebook community. Either way, back then, I found Facebook creepy but a good way to get into contact with people since I still had no cellular device until 2 years later. I didn't post much in statuses or photos, I just existed there merely to come into contact with my friends from school and also to keep in contact with the people I had moved away from.
As I grew more and more comfortable with my online self, I posted more, complained more, added more people who I didn't necessarily really interact with. This is odd to me personally because offline, I keep very few people close. If you ask me how many friends I have, I may actually only say around 4 or 5 names because my friendship circles exist in very strict hierarchies. I generally do not have just friends. I have people I deeply care about and then I have people who I interact with occasionally but really never delve my deepest secrets to, and I usually regard them more as acquaintances. Most people I know think I see this as a very black and white divide, but it's how I've developed many of my friendships in the past.
So then why do I have 300 people that I am friends with on Facebook? I'm not really sure. I skimmed it and I see people who, while generally interested in what is happening in their school lives lately, I could actually care less about their overall daily lives. And they do not interact on my Facebook page either.
But what I also don't understand is why on Facebook I'm more open to complaining or posting things which I would not usually share with people who could care less. Naturally I will never stop posting my artwork on my Facebook profile because I understand not everyone goes to my DA page to view my gallery and I feel like that art is something I can share with everyone, not just my close friends.
Tonight, I made the conscious decision to discontinue this useless path of aimlessly posting my every thought to Facebook. Come graduation time, I want to be able to post updates about the general things happening in my life to the people who I know are interested to look at that in the future; to keep in contact with those I wish to keep in contact with whom also stay in contact with me. I've also been attempting to purge my friends list, which is an easy task when you ask one question: Do I care about this person's daily life and do they continue to interact with mine via Facebook?
I'm not doing this because it's unprofessional or is gonna fail to get me a job in the future, but I do actually remember a time when I was literally an invisible wall of a person. People could not get inside me with noticing me first. And I value that deep interaction I have with people; both offline and online. I've met many great people online that I consider to be in my inner online circle, similar to those I know offline who are within my inner circle in real life. They are slightly different but only because on the surface, I see one face-to-face all the time and the others I've never met offline yet.
Of course, my Twitter is what it is. I'm trying to be conscious about what I post there too, to be the right balanced person on those, but it is a good way to interact with my DeviantArt followers who are interested in me moreso outside of my DA gallery.
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