Nightlife / Stephanie Depasquale

What's social
networking etiquette

| Tuesday, October 14, 2008 | () comments

Stephanie De Pasquale

Augustana College has its homecoming festivities this weekend. I was in an out-of-town wedding during last year’s event, so I’m pretty excited about getting together with some friends I haven’t seen in two years.

To figure out exactly who is coming back to the Quad-Cities this weekend, I started a Facebook (the social networking site of choice at the campus in Rock Island) group and invited all of my friends from school. I also left the group open to others in the Augustana network, meaning that if they went to the college but I didn’t personally invite them, they still could join.

I checked the group today to see who is coming and found something surprising. As I checked the list of members, I came across a sorority sister who was a Facebook “friend” but has “defriended” me since graduation.

We had our issues, but it was over an incident that happened four years ago, and I thought we had moved past it. Clearly I was mistaken, but it just seems rude to send that message via the Internet.

(The Quad-City Times also has a social networking site called Quadsville. You can check it out at quadsville.com.)

Have you been on either end of a defriending situation on a social networking site? And do you think it’s silly or a serious faux pas in social networking etiquette?

Stephanie De Pasquale can be contacted at (563) 333-2639 or sdepasquale@qctimes.com.