At some point no matter how hard you try to construct your social network into people you really like, there is a certain amount of drift in those networks. That drift makes it harder to think of the people you are following as exciting as time progresses. How you reenergize your social network is just as important as building it.

Social Networks get dull after a while, there are only so many times you can look at the same jokes, the same types of pictures, the same travel monologues (I’m getting on a plane now), the ups and downs of social actives, the latest party, the latest next new big thing that we can’t remember next week. The last time you watered the puppy and set the plant outside, or ran out of coffee and the horrendous scars that this has left behind requiring years of psychotherapy.

This is when re-Jiggering friends becomes important, you can unfriend them, but there is a social stigma attached to that. So rather than unfriend them, you can simply bury them in the social network.

In Facebook you have an option (sorry Debbie, you are just my example here) to show less or more of someone. If you hover at the end of their entry you will see options, and from there you can choose less or more of the particular person. This is a great way to bury someone so that you do not see them often (especially if they are prolific), without suffering the awkward questions that always arise when you unfriend someone. This is one of the most important social tools in Facebook that you have at your disposal.

In FriendFeed, you have three immediate buckets that you can use, favorites, professional and personal. You can dump people you do not really care to listen to anymore by using these buckets to segregate your FriendFeed friends. Just dump them into anything other than your home page, and if you do not go into those buckets, you will not see them again. This is one of the most important social tools in FriendFeed, without carrying the social stigma of unfriending someone.

Social Median has much the same thing; you can choose how much information you want to get from someone, all updates, relevant updates, or stop. If you do not want to stop, just keep the updates at relevant to the keywords you have chosen. That way if they go off on another tangent about something you could care less about, then you do not have to be involved. This is one of the most important social tools in Social Median, without carrying the stigma of unfriending someone.

Many of the social networks have ways of minimizing the dullness that we really are, and allow you to simply box people into things you want to see less of, ensuring relevancy to what you are looking for, or otherwise burying the old so that you can bring new people into your social network. People often do their own thing, and share far too much in social networks, much of it is not why you followed them. So rather than abandoning them totally, you can reach out and reduce the stories of preeclampsia, overt drunkenness, psychotherapy, travel plans, I got on a plane, hey I am in a Bar here is my GIS information, trolls, relationship issues, and all the other stuff that well, is too much information.

Tags: reducing noise, social networks, social median, friendfeed, facebook, minimizing, traumatic, damage to your soul, silly

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