Conventional wisdom warns against mass social network befriendment for privacy reasons. But high friend counts can also limit how well you stay stay in touch with people.

Some years back, I stumbled upon the notion to start using Facebook primarily as a means of networking. With that goal in mind, I started adding everyone I remembered meeting and accepting requests from anyone I had friends in common with (the assumption being that we had probably met). And to support this, I also adjusted my privacy settings to share less and scrubbed my profile of too many details. If I was gonna have my profile open to so many, I'd have to cater to the most distant "friend".

By the time I came to Japan, I had nearly 1,000 friends. But it was coming to Japan that made me realize how detrimental this networking idea was. 

No longer able to attend weddings, be physically present for parties or live in a timezone conducive to American conversations, FB became a life line to keep up with people. And that's when I really started noticing how cluttered it was. The low signal to noise ratio had me missing new photos and updates. Instead, I'd log on and be bombarded with FarmVille updates from old coworkers I hadn't spoken with in 4 years.

The privacy thing crept up too. I realized just how uncomfortable I was sharing pictures and details of my experience when peeps I hadn't seen or really spoken with since junior high could also see them. It wasn't a big deal in the states because I didn't share much info then. I had been using FB more as a glorified address book. But with an ocean between myself and everyone else, I found a status update or new photo could go a long way to shorten the distance.

To their credit, FB has made significant strides with their privacy and redesign efforts to deal with this problem, but my new philosophy is that a social network as personal as theirs should be kept as personal as possible.

LinkedIn is great for business and Twitter is cool for everything else. But for those highly individualized social interactions, FB just can't be beat.

At over 350 Million users, it's tempting to use FB for networking. And with their Friend Suggestion and Friend Finder tools, they make that especially easy to do. However, in this case, the age-old addage of quality over quantity pops up again. I believe that FB's value increases when you share and connect only with those most important to you.