Ooh, a new friend request! Who can that be? You click on it and…….. who the heck is she? Smiling broadly at you is Sally, nice profile picture, cute kitty in the background and, oh look, one mutual friend. You wonder for a second if it’s wise to accept someone you’ve never met but hey, she knows Rachel who you last had any real contact with at school in 1994 so what harm can it do?!
You click ‘Confirm’ and, guess what, you now get to invite Sally to add a load of people she doesn’t know either. How good is that?!
Madness, madness, madness!!
Sure, a lot of us reject these requests but it’s frightening how many of us feel too guilty to – we don’t want to offend or we genuinely feel it can’t do any harm. Especially children and young people who are looking for approval and validation, even from complete strangers.
But let’s look at it another way.
You’re strolling down the street, minding your own and up strolls some random guy. He squares up to you, stares you straight in the eye and says in a happy, smiley, cheesy voice,
“Hey, hi! I’m Brian. Please be my friend!”
You barely get time to register this bizarre intrusion into your world by a complete stranger when he goes on to say,
“Oh go on! If you say yes I get to be a part of your life and find out so much more about you instantly than if we built a friendship over a normal period of time. I’ll even get to see photos of your friends and family, find out what you like, what you feel, discover where your children go to school and, most importantly, I can have full access to all your friends and ask them to be my friends too for whatever strange motive I might have. I mean, why would you say no? Look at me? I’m very smiley and friendly looking aren’t I? And look, I even have a dog. You like dogs don’t you?!”
So, there he is, Brian, in all his smarmy glory, saying all of this to your face.
What you gonna do?
Freak out and run, that’s what you’re gonna do! Run as fast as you can and keep running until weird Brian is just a dot in the distance and out of your life for good.
But for some reason, when this happens in techno-world so many of us hesitate, um and ahh for a bit and then click ‘confirm’ as if to casually shake hands and say, ‘Nice to meet you Brian’
Of course, Brian and Sally might be completely harmless.
Just two lonely folk, or really friendly folk, or normal folk who just like people or need lots of social media friends to make them feel happier about themselves (although still not a logical reason to let them in to your privacy).
But Brian and Sally might also be scammers, stalkers, obsessives, paedophiles, groomers, or, best case scenario, just plain bored and nosey. Is it really worth the risk accepting that request when we have absolutely no way of telling the difference?
Just decline, decline, decline – you’re not obliged to open up about yourself to anybody, least of all someone you’ve never met, never spoken to and never gave permission to to just stroll into your life and demand attention.
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