Each society has certain social rules, and Facebook is no exception. Northwestern surveyed 300 University undergraduates to discover what etiquette is expected in this new culture. The following is a compilation of their responses.
The Six Cardinal Rules of Facebook
• Just because you can post every picture of yourself in every state of consciousness does not mean that you should.
• Do not list your relationship status as married unless you are actually married.
• There is a fine line between friendly and weird. Do not “poke” (virtual equivalent to tapping someone in class to say “Hi”), send an instant message or (and this is a biggie) call someone if you have nothing to say except that “Your Facebook picture is hot.”
• Browsing your friends’ profiles to see updates and pictures is the function of Facebook and very commonplace. Spending hours looking at profiles and pictures of people you have never met would classify you as a “Facebook stalker.”
• Do not spread chain letters or punctuation-mark pictures in the shape of trucks or various body parts using peoples’ message “walls.”
• Do not “friend” someone if you went to high school together and never spoke, have never had a conversation, want one friend from every school or have the same name. — K.W.
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