Caught up by the spirit of purging, I trimmed about 70 or so “friends” from my Facebook list. If you discover you were one of them, don’t take it personally. I am just trying to streamline my virtual social circle to make it truly social based on whether or not we actually interact.

Many of the people I deleted (such a harsh word, don’t you think?) were business associates from the SVM network whose interaction with me never extended beyond accepting a “friend” request. I never exchanged messages, note mentions or even acknowledgment of comments on links or status updates. We just “work” for the same “company”, and I can contact any one of them through the Big Tent message board that constitutes our virtual corporate offices if I need to.

I kept a few of the publishing houses. Interestingly, they do respond and message and I find the information useful enough to keep them on for a while longer.

My fiction writing peeps and a few authors survived for the same reason. There is interaction.

Naturally family and friends remain; even the latter whom I have never met in person but of whom I am fond and with whom I love to engage.

Rob wondered about my Twitter feed. Would I clean house there too? So far it remains intact but it will be whittled to just friends, writers, editors and agents in the near future. I don’t have time to entertain anyone else.

Is it ruthless to use Twitter as a business tool only?  I don’t think Facebook can be used unless interaction is the aim, but Twitter is more of an information exchange and networking device.

I hope no one ends up feeling bad about my “unfriending”, though if we were never friends it can’t really be seen as personal or “unfriendly”. I know that I have always felt slightly bad about myself when I have been dumped from a friends’ list or blogroll although I acknowledge that it was something I felt without cause. I can think of only a few people who have done this with intent and they are not people whose good opinion was really all that great to begin with.