I have recently made a change to how I use facebook. I think it is a good change that I needed to do but I feel bad about it. I get friended all the time on facebook by people I don’t know but who I am sure I would love to get to know. Many of these are listeners of one of my podcasts. But what I am finding is that facebook is not the place for me to connect to new people. I look at my updates on some days and only the faces of stranger stare back at me. Sure I can hide the updates of anyone that I don’t want to hear about (and anyone who is telling me about their farm game, I mean seriously folks) but then why did I friend them. So the time has come for me to admit that I have fewer friends than facebook says and pay better attention to the ones that I have.

I think that also means I need to pay attention to my listeners but had decided to do that in the way that Facebook recommends using “fan” pages (yes I hate that term).

So if you friend me these days don’t be too surprised if I say:

I don’t think we have met, but please let me know if that is just because my brain is made of swiss cheese.

I am making a change to how I use facebook to change my profile to be just family and friends. I am hearing a lot of smart people I know tell me I was using facebook wrong and I see the wisdom of what they are saying. So please don’t be upset if I don’t accept your friend invitation but if I get your updates I might miss pictures of my new grand niece and I don’t want to accept you and a friend but ignore your updates.

The Amateur Traveler page on facebook is at http://facebook.com/amateurtraveler

Of course, since my 30 year high school reunion is this week, that swiss cheese brain is a really good posibility.