Facebook Lurkers
I read an interesting article about “Facebook lurkers” today. In the article the author described two different definitions of “FB Lurkers.” The first being—people who wait on Facebook for their “friends” to appear so they can start chatting with them. These people wait in the virtual bushes and then pounce on their pray as soon as the chat bar, on the bottom right side of the screen, adds someone to their list. (Note: This is not the definition of lurker that I use.)
The definition of lurker that I use is the second definition. To me, a lurker is someone who never posts anything, but reads what everyone else posts, and then later comments about their friend’s posts, but not ever on-line. In other words, they never contribute to the FB community.
These people have the nerve to say things like, “Well so-and-so always writes about every little thing he’s doing,” or, “So-and-so is always so busy, they write on their wall two or three times a day.” But yet they never utter a word on-line.
What’s even creepier is when you see someone in real life who you forgot were even your friend on Facebook, and they say something like, “Hey, how did that sleep study go?”
“How did you know about that?”
“I read it on Facebook,” they say.
“Oh.” Lurker!
Real friends share what’s going on with their lives. That’s how you build a community and that’s how people become and stay friends.
I’ve been thinking about losing some of my FB lurkers. I think what I’m going to do is, if I haven’t heard, seen or read anything from certain “friends,” in a while, they’re getting dropped.
Harsh? Maybe. But if they’re not real friends, they won’t miss me anyway.
So lurkers, “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” or possibly be gone forever.