Noelle McCarthy: The problems of too many Facebook friends

Jesse Eisenberg plays a smart American in <i>The Social Network</i>. Photo / Supplied

There are six weeks left to go in 2010, but I'm calling The Social Network the film of the year.

There's nothing like a smart American, and Aaron Sorkin writes smart Americans like you wouldn't believe. Cracking dialogue and tremendous acting aside, what I really loved about this film was the simple question at the heart of it - does coming up with an epoch-defining invention justify screwing over your best friend?

Whatever went down between Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg and his best friend, Eduardo Saverin (and Saverin signed a whopping non-disclosure agreement, so we'll probably never know), it's fair to say that Facebook put paid to their friendship, and I'm worried it might be about to do the same to two of mine.

I have 947 friends on Facebook. I also have a problem saying no. And now my real-life friends have a problem with me.

Last weekend I listened while two friends of mine discussed how fraught it is being friends with me on Facebook because I have too many Facebook friends.

They don't like saying too much to me, was the upshot, because too many other people can see. They don't like running the gauntlet of Facebook spies, they don't like being exposed. This from two of my actual best friends, the people I speak to every single day. I've messed up my facebooking, obviously, but where?

I've got too many friends for one thing. As soon as I joined Facebook, I started making friends. I sat in my shop window, and I peered into everyone elses, and when people wanted to connect with me, I was flattered and so I said yes.

Not with complete strangers exactly, but some connections were tenuous enough.

I'm Facebook friends with friends of my sister, friends of my ex-boyfriends, people who read this column online. I can spot the creeps, mostly ("I'm not being presumptuous, this isn't a date") but my entry requirements for friendship aren't onerous, on the whole.

And once you're friends with me, you've got the ringside seat. My profile is wide open, I've never taken advantage of the "limited" view.

What's the point really, when you can Google pretty much all of us in 10 seconds flat? That's always been my rationale for not applying limited profile settings, and in fairness, none of this was an issue when I had a profile consisting of two flattering pictures, and a list of the books I like.

It doesn't matter how many people can see you if all they're getting is a few innocuous details that are already in the public domain. My Facebook profile was a CV basically, with a few swear words thrown in for some bite.

But recently, something changed. I'm now using Facebook as Mr Zuckerberg intended - interactively, avidly, and every single day. It was when I was in Ireland last month that I really noticed it.

I bought a camera and took pictures, and I put them all up on Facebook to document the trip. And oh! how the comments flowed in. Every photo I put up was remarked on, and looked at, and liked.

And suddenly, it was like all of my friends from New Zealand were there with me, in Dublin, and Oxford and West Cork. And I went wild with the updates as well, because I wanted my friends to know what I was doing and what I could see. And now that I'm home, the party's not over, I'm still updating my Facebook constantly, writing all over walls, uploading links, documenting my every riveting observation and thought. Facebook is my own personal billboard.

What matters to me is that I'm talking, and on Facebook, it feels like I'm being listened to.

But there are the people who listen, and the people who overhear. And which is which depends on you, the talker, and who you are talking to. I need to figure out what I'm saying, and to whom. My favourite thing about Facebook is using it to talk to my friends. Notes and posts in our private code "the wink and elbow language of delight". But the wink and elbow is no longer a secure operating code. Now my friends are worried about their privacy. Maybe I should be too. But I never intended Facebook to be the place where my deepest friendships lived, its more like a three-dimensional common room with people passing through. And the problem with trying to have a private party on Facebook, is that there's no one watching the door.

If there are too many people at my party, that's my problem, I never took the time to figure out how I wanted my Facebook self to be. Now my favourite people have threatened to remove me as a friend, and maybe they should. As Mr Zuckerberg was first to discover, Facebook can have an adverse impact on your ability to be a good friend.