HOME / the chat room: Real-time discussions with Slate writers.

What Are Friends For?Reihan Salam takes readers' questions about Facebook etiquette and managing your buddies.

Posted Thursday, Sept. 27, 2007, at 1:53 PM ET

Slate contributor Reihan Salam was online at Washingtonpost.com on Thursday, Sept. 27, to discuss Facebook etiquette and the social-networking phenomenon. An unedited transcript of the chat follows.

(Continued from page 2)

RSS

I think a Facebook purge of friends is a waste of time. It takes more time to go back and look at a person's profile just to see if they are still worth being your "friend" than to just take it and roll with the punches. You can spend hours just deleting five "friends" that seem unworthy. Then, for spending that much time online on Facebook to begin with, was it really worth it?

Reihan Salam: To each her/his own!

Not sure where you got the idea that random-friending necessarily means stalking. I certainly don't think that's true. But I do think unscrupulous people do use Facebook, and any other social networking website, and that one should be cautious about sharing information.

_______________________

San Diego: Hi Reihan. I like your statement: "Do you want everyone you went to college with to see your photos, or only actual friends?" My question is, should people who haven't pleased the gatekeepers of academia—like you have, because it is always people like you writing about "your" Facebook, which was created for affluent Ivy League brats—consider themselves worthy of any Facebook friends like you? Or should I stick with my own caste? And yes, you're welcome to pretend that I represent all those awful non-elite scummers who would presume to have a Facebook identity.

Reihan Salam: This is a little odd. Perhaps you're a little confused about how Facebook works. I'd recommend you check out www.facebook.com. Good luck with your rage!

_______________________

Over-40 Facebooker: As social networking sites expand beyond their youth core, how do they plan to explain their value to those of us whose college days are long over? Does allowing "old" people in dilute the value of sites like Facebook to their core audience?

Reihan Salam: Absolutely not! Plenty of college students are quite pleased to friend older siblings and even parents. The more people who belong to Facebook, the more useful it becomes. That's why some of us are really excited about open platforms: the more people you can chat with, or you can email, the more useful *any* system becomes.

The truth is, it is so easy to ignore people/have nothing to do with them that new members have scarcely any effect. Some social networking sites are self-consciously selective (for brainy people or preppies or alumnae/i or elite schools). And it's easy to see why someone might appreciate that added level of exclusivity. But I don't think that's the deep logic of Facebook—yes, they want to use networks within the network to structure and manage information, and to provide a built-in level of privacy, but they want to be a network of networks that is fundamentally inclusive. I think ...

_______________________

Facebook vs. MySpace: I have a MySpace page. How is MySpace similar to/different from Facebook?

Reihan Salam: Boy, answering this one could take a really long time! One difference, probably not the one you're looking for, is that Facebook is an independent company and MySpace is owned by News Corp. MySpace has way more members, and it is based on a different set of ideas: it is more about expressing an identity, even a fanciful or made-up one, through the use of design (wallpaper, skins, fonts, etc.), music (built-in audio players are a lot more common), kooky screennames. Now that Facebook has launched the Facebook platform, they've made the site a lot more extensible/customizable, like MySpace, but they take a fundamentally different approach—they want to deepen your connections to people you *already* know in real life.

_______________________

Landstuhl, Germany: Just wanted to say I liked your article on Facebook. It answered my questions about what to do about "friends" requests. I am an Americn living in Germany but am from an ethnic minority also, so I can relate to your comments. I recently discovered Facebook and thought I would check it out but am not too sure how to use it. I am what you would call "living in the technological dinosaur age"!

Reihan Salam: Go ahead and try it—40 million other people have figured it out, so there's no reason you can't too!

_______________________

A regular Slate reader: Are you and Emily Yoffe friends on Facebook?

Reihan Salam: You know what, I sent her a message once (because I am a really big fan), but I haven't friended her. Quite frankly, I don't feel worthy. She's seven times the writer I'll ever be! Plus I haven't met her in person.

_______________________

Anonymous: A funny Facebook story—Facebook launched for my school when I was a junior, an interesting time because much later and I probably never would have joined. After graduating a few years ago, I just recently received a Facebook message from a girl who's currently a senior. She lives in the university-owned townhouse where I lived my senior year, and they received a package for me. Two years later, seems a relative had an old address for me. Because the package looked more substantial than junk-mail, this girl used Facebook to look me up, discovered I still lived in the city, and let me know. I know two years back that Facebook (or similar programs) never would have provided that opportunity for the mail we used to receive for past residents!

Reihan Salam: Wow! You know, she *could* have tracked you down in the bad old days, but it would've been a lot tougher. This is one small part of the promise of social networking: we don't always know how this stuff enhances our life, but neat things like this happen all the time.