Suggested relationship status: in a relationship with Jennifer Aveyard.
October 23rd, 2009So Facebook has a new feature.
On the right hand side, it’s long since had little faces, with names, and the phrase ‘you have one mutual friend’. Which is fine when it’s that guy from uni who I never got round to adding but less useful when it’s a passing acquaintance of someone I randomly met at a pub after Facebook friending briefly became the new swapping numbers. And that’s passably useful, I guess, although there do seem to be only about six people going round and round in that slot like they’re terrifyingly stalking me and they have no idea.
Underneath that is the new feature. This is a someone on my friends list I’ve presumably not contacted in a while (or, I haven’t messaged on Facebook because I genuinely know them). It has their name and face, then says ‘catch up with him’ and ‘write on his wall’. The only use I can possibly think for this is that it will keep reminding me of which of my lesser-seen friends’ names connects to which human face. That’s a useful service, like flashcards for babies learning to speak, and naturally it’s only trying to help (and by ‘help’ obviously I mean, ‘ensure I do as much of my communication as possible via Facebook and not only read their ads but force my friends to read their ads’). I just feel like any day now Facebook is going to pop up a picture of an ex with a link saying ‘what happened to that nice girl you were seeing?’.
Well, thanks, Facebook. You’re helping a lot.
Tags for this article: Facebook
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October 25th, 2009 at 13:26
I’ve been experiencing first hand how poorly thought out this feature is – some weeks ago, a close friend of mine died. His family haven’t closed his profile because it stands as a nice testament to who he was, full of photos and tributes from friends etc… And now Facebook keeps telling me to “reconnect with” him.
The only way I can figure out how to stop this is to un-friend him (which I obviously don’t want to do) so I guess I just have to put up with being invited to do something I’d dearly like to, but can’t…
October 25th, 2009 at 21:19
I don’t really know much about Facebook, but surely you can bring this fact to the attention of the administrators, Mr Bish. It’s obviously a situation that didn’t occur to them, but that’s not surprising in this day and age!
October 26th, 2009 at 17:42
According to Facebook’s blog today, they have a ‘memorialised’ profile feature, which removes a profile from this kind of ’suggest’ feature while leaving it available for those already listed as friends.
http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=163091042130
October 26th, 2009 at 19:44
Thanks Andrew, I’ll suggest that to the family. No reply from my message to admin yet, but when they get round to it I guess it’ll just tell me that anyway…
October 27th, 2009 at 02:58
I take it all back: they either did think of it, or were alerted to the fact that this was (obviously) going to happen.
October 27th, 2009 at 22:55
I’ve had the misfortune of knowing about that feature for a while; I think it’s a really good thing, one of those unexpected benefits you get from a technology like Facebook. I suppose the trouble is that it’s a difficult thing to publicise. If the family doesn’t specifically look into it it’s not going to happen, and that’s a real shame.
October 31st, 2009 at 12:27
An invitation to ‘reconnect’ with a dead friend might upset, but Facebook just realised one of my friends wasn’t moving and asked me to poke him. That would be really insensitive.
December 17th, 2009 at 03:22
hey im a little confused why my name is in the title of this blog entry? Jennifer Aveyard? Is not a common name so bit strange to see it?
December 17th, 2009 at 16:09
Pure coincidence. But there are only so many names, so anything I make up was probably going to be someone’s.
I thought it unwise to use one of my actual friends’ names. That would just be weird.