friending

I am a huge fan of friending people on Facebook. I didn't used to like it - I was strongly in the "wait to be friended" camp of people which I assume comprises most of the internet. If someone wanted so badly to be my friend, they could just find me themselves; otherwise, they weren't worth the social validation of being my friend online.

College started and I friended a few people, then got a bunch of friend requests as a result of this - so I assumed that it was a fair way of breaking into a group of people. You give a little, you get a lot. I met some people who had never friended a single person in their life, and I realized that this was a very silly group to be a part of just by the way they talked about it. I personally don't think I'm more important than the rest of the world, but sometimes I start feeling like I'm pretty hot stuff...and I think that yielding and friending other people is a good way to combat those feelings that I'm a better class of human.

Now that I'm an upperclassman (again) this is especially true. To me it's like nbd to be friends with a freshman but to them it's like omg a junior I'm so cool now. (Or so I assume, based on the way the way I perceived the world as a freshman.) I also realized that this can be explained through economics! (As can anything.)

So, utility can be thought of as the enjoyment or value you get out of an object, or in this case an action. My change in utility in friending someone is now pretty low. I might have a moment of anxiety where I wonder if they'll think that this is premature in our relationship and that we should have some more awkward encounters before becoming facebook friends, but I've gotten over it so many times that my utility goes down by some arbitrary small amount, which we'll call -1. It takes some sucking up of my ego, but it's not terrible and I'll forget I friended them until I get the notification that they accepted my request; nbd.

I will now estimate the average change in utility someone gets from receiving a friend request from me. Lest you think that my pride is raging right now, I'm doing this from my experience of getting friend requests. There are a couple of situations to consider:

1. We met at a large gathering or are part of a large group. This could be +1 all the way to +5 depending on how brief our encounter was (+1 for just introductions) and how awesome they think I am (+3ish if they think I'm amazing) and how many other people were there and thus the likelihood that they got a lot of friend requests at the same time (so mine is worth +1) or are impressed that I remembered them (+3).
2. We have a ton of mutual friends but have never met in real life (or were introduced but never conversed). This is basically just a +1 because yes it's a friend but it's not really exciting.
3. We've met several times. This is basically a +2 to a +5, depending on if they just love making other people request them or if they actually don't like me but have met me so many times they can't help but expect a friend request (but they don't want to be friends so they didn't initiate it, but they still are happy with the knowledge that they don't need me in their life but I seem to need them). Or they could have just forgotten about facebook. It's an extremely unpredictable variable.
4. We just met once but actually became friends in real life and I went home and immediately friended them. This is a +5 situation, no doubt. They would have friended me if they got to facebook first, and we're both just happy to be friends that it doesn't matter who friended who...it just matters that we write all over each other's walls that we're glad we're actually friends.

I assume that for most people, they don't just friend people as willingly as I do nowadays that I want to be inclusive of everyone, so friending people is probably a -2 to a -5 for them depending on their own sense of pride and/or laziness. Some people also probably get a positive change from friending people but I'm assuming that this is untrue for most people (except in case #4 where we all have the highest utility).

So in conclusion, overall welfare is highest when people actually become friends and then become facebook friends but this isn't always worth waiting for. I estimate that the change in total utility is between 0 and +4 when I friend someone at a time which other people may call premature, but between -4 and +3 when I wait for them to friend me.

Remark: I think that this may only apply to my school/generation because we're really into facebook creeping and it isn't all that weird to be friended before you really feel like friends.