Have you checked your Facebook profile today? Chances are that some time between showering, eating and catching the bus to school this morning you found time to check your wall and newsfeed to see if you missed anything while you were sleeping.

For many people, Facebook has replaced email as the quickest way to reach friends. One peek at your newsfeed will give you a current “snapshot” of how your buddies are and what everyone is up to.

A quick Facebook visit can easily get out of hand though and before you know it you're tangled in an hour-long creeping session! Come on, we've all done it. You're innocently looking at your classmate's page when you see a friend you have in common, which leads you to their page where you see they were tagged in a picture, so you start looking through photos of some stranger's birthday album when you discover a picture of someone you went to public school with! Wow, small world, eh?

Here's the moment where you decide; do you keep looking at the photos or do you randomly send that kid a friend request and hope he remembers you from the fourth grade? Far too many of you are choosing the second option...but I'll get to that.

When you first join Facebook, your friend list expands so rapidly you feel like the most popular kid in school! You can't believe that all of these people remember you!

In the beginning, you watch your friends list grow from 30 to 100 and feel a satisfying mixture of smug adoration and comfort in knowing that even though it's Friday night and you're watching reruns of “The Office” with your cat, you have 100 FRIENDS! Event invitations start rolling in and suddenly your schedule is filling up with Stag & Does and Open Mic Nights.

You begin to join Facebook “groups” and start to carve out a quirky politically-conscious online alter-ego for yourself; you support Barack Obama, you love Jon Stewart and you watch “Flight of the Concords.” You're suddenly hip and relevant and everyone from high school who thought you were lame can suck it!

This is where late-night friend requests can take an ugly turn. Now that you've tailored your profile to show how smart, sexy and funny you think you are, why not invite some ex-boyfriends or old classmates to bask in your awesomeness? So you start randomly contacting people you haven't spoken to in 10 years, hoping their curiosity (or ambivalence) will lead them to accept. This would allow you to spend hours pouring over everything they've been doing since high school.

It's easy to spot this type of friend request when they arrive; it's usually an old neighbor, an old camp buddy or an old girlfriend you thought moved away. The point is, it's usually someone you haven't thought of in five years who is suddenly asking if they can be your friend. Talk about uncomfortable! Sure, if you ran into this guy at the mall you'd say ‘hi' and exchange pleasantries, but do you really need to show this same guy everything from your favourite movie to your wedding photos?

Sure, you can always “ignore” this request, but what about those folks who just don't get it? I've received the same request from some girl six times and she's just not getting the hint that I'm not comfortable letting her into my social circle. What are the rules here? Should I write her a message explaining that I have too many friends? The allowable limit is actually 5,000, but the average person tends to have about 120.

Recently, Burger King launched a “Whopper Sacrifice” campaign promising a free Whopper to anyone who deleted 10 friends from their Facebook list. The company then contacted the deleted buddies to notify them that they had been dumped for a burger. The campaign is now over, but the company estimates that their promotion ended over 234,000 Facebook “friendships”. The campaign's intent was to look at how quickly the friend list has evolved from quality to quantity.

It is important though to address this new question in social etiquette: “How to you “unfriend” someone without offending them?”

Some people have suggested changing your status to say: “I'm cleaning out my friend list, please don't be offended!” others simply delete and hope no one notices. Since people are not notified when you delete them from your list, in theory they will only notice when they attempt to access your profile and are denied. Ouch.

The debate continues though when you've had a falling out with someone or ended a romantic relationship. A lot of sleepless nights have been spent pouring over wall postings in an attempt to figure out if your ex has moved on.

Guess what? You don't have to leave your house to still be considered a stalker!

Think about who's on your list; siblings, classmates and coworkers? I recently accepted a request from a kid I used to baby-sit who has reached a sudden level of maturity that I don't think I'm comfortable with. The fact is, our friend list can be as eclectic as our interests and reflect the wide range of people we have in our lives.

With over 175 million active users, Facebook's popularity has been built on our natural voyeuristic and curious nature. Basically, people want to know what you're doing and who you're doing it with.

Before you carelessly click “accept” the next time someone seeks out your friendship, it's best to consider your relationship with this person. How appropriate would it be for them to stumble onto a photo of you piss-drunk in a tiara on your birthday and do you want them creeping on your page at three in the morning? Chances are, it's going to happen.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.