Sometimes the intarwebs makes me laugh.

[temporus]

So Facebook has this "new" feature, whereby it suggests people that you might know.   Now, it's not a bad feature, it uses various criteria, such as people you have in common, and then suggests people you might know based upon how many other people you have on your "friends" list.   Okay, I get that, and sure enough its a neat way for me to run into folks as they sign up and start friending other people.   Spreads the work load of all that "internetworking" around so that the poor newcomer to the social webs doesn't have to try to think of and track down personally everyone else they know.  Especially as for some of the older generations (read that as anyone who was born before"The Internet" was a household word say mid 90s?) who probably will get a tad overwhelmed the first time they log into one of these sites, wondering just what the heck they should do next.   And if you're of the type that bothers to go input your high school and college, it will also suggest people you went to school with, to see if perhaps you might know them too.  And this is the part that makes me laugh. 

I went to Rutgers.  Rutgers is a rather large state university.   (And by no means the largest of its type out there.)  My graduating class at Rutgers College was 1900 (ish).  Mind you, that's only Rutgers College.  That doesn't include the Douglass, Cook, Livingston, University College, College of Engineering, College of Pharmacy, Mason Gross School of the Arts, etc, etc.   All of which are part of Rutgers University, on the same campus.  Not even talking about the other two campuses in the state, nor any of the Graduate schools.   So I don't know how many folks I graduated with.   But I know this, there's only the one choice for Rutgers on Facebook. Heck, if I recall, there was somewhere around 900 people who graduated with my same major!  I know there are folks who are much more social than I am, so the fact that I remember relatively few folks from college isn't much a surprise to me.  But Facebook showing me random other folks who happened to also go to Rutgers around the same time I did reminds me of the way people would ask me somewhat inane questions back when I was in college.   Like, "Hey, do you know my friend Jim?  He also goes to Rutgers too."  Yes, that's a real question I was asked.  And variants like that on many, many occasions.  People didn't seem to get that Rutgers is a really large school.   There are people who I graduated from High School with, who went to Rutgers with me, and I never saw them at college in all my years there.  I wasn't avoiding anyone, and to the best of my knowledge, they weren't avoiding me either.  There were people I knew well from High School, and even when we shared majors, rarely saw each other on campus.  That's the kind of big Rutgers can be.  And again, I'll stress it's not even in the same league as some of the really BIG state universities out there.  Heck, my High School class only had about 240 kids, and I don't think I know every one of them, what makes Facebook think I'm going to have snowball's chance in hell at remembering random folks from my alma mater.

Yeah, mostly, they only highlight people who also have someone or something else in common with me.  Of course, one of those things could be based upon where I live.  I heard a statistic that says roughly half the people in America end up living within 50 miles of the locale of their highest educational institution.  So if you stopped at high school, you probably live close to your high school.  Went to undergrad?  You probably live close to your college.  Went on for a masters or PhD?  Same deal.  Now, if that's true, then roughly half the people I went to school with and for whom Rutgers was their final school, live in the same Facebook region as me.  That's probably a lot of people.  Most of whom I've got no clue who they are.  And even more, if they are women who are now married and chose to change their names (A fairly high percent do, though I don't know what that would be) odds are good that even if I knew them, I might not recognize them unless they also choose to list their "maiden" name.  (Or if they put up a picture.  But many folks don't, and even when they do, it might not be clear or large enough for me to identify.  Not to mention that as the years go by, many of us change with them.)  Not to mention, I'm probably friends with untold people who are friends with people who also went to Rutgers, because it is the largest state school in NJ, and since I still live here...odds are good that folks living in the state also know people who went to Rutgers.

So, nice idea in theory.  In practice, not really all that useful.

Comments

[edhorch.livejournal.com]

My first thought when that happened to me was, "You went to Rutgers? Do you know...?" which is like when you're in California and someone says, "You're from Jersey? Do you know...?"

[temporus.livejournal.com]

That's why it strikes me as funny. I mean, hey, technically, I think you, your wife, and I were all at RU at around the same time. But we never met there. I've probably met more folks who were there outside of Rutgers, than I really knew when I was at Rutgers. At best, I might have known a few hundred other students. And even that's probably an overestimate.