Facebook: To delete on not delete?

MANY Facebook users often feel the need to dive into their friends list and ‘spring clean’ the contacts that clutter their profile. They delete all of the contacts who they haven’t connected with recently, or those that bombard them with annoying posts.

However, a columnist at The Huffington Post, suggested that although this cleanse might seem beneficial it could actually harm the social media user personally and professionally.

It was argued that every contact that a person deletes from their Facebook account is essentially one less networking opportunity.

For example, an old school friend, whom you might not have spoken to in two years, might work at the company you’ve had your eye on for many years, and could link you to any job openings, or even put in a good word at the HR department.

But if you had deleted that contact simply because you had not spoken to him or her in two years, you might have missed out on that networking opportunity.

A Facebook connection could also enable its users to reconnect with old friends whom they have lost a physical connection with. For example, people often lose contact with friends who have moved overseas, and delete these connections. But what happens when that person moves back after several years.

If one were to keep that connection on Facebook and saw the post announcing their return, it would be easy to link up with that person and reconnect the friendship.

And, while it might be true that a busy friend list might make it easy to miss the important or relevant posts on a Facebook timeline, there are ways to organise the ‘friends’ into lists. This will enable the user to keep track of important contacts and their posts.