I don't like facebook

Yesterday I rejected a friend request:

Do I know you? I avoid adding strangers into my friend list. I don't think I know you in person, and I don't find anything interesting in your facebook page.

People always feel obliged when being requested to "be friend". That can be exploited by malicious. Actually there is one independent incident 12 hours after my rejection, and this incident proved my paranoid way is correct:

My facebook got a notification that a friend is tagged in one message, so of course I checked that message. As a friend, it's a courtesy to check on friends' activity, isn't it? Anyway, that message is a total non-sense commercial message without any value, but what makes it distinguished from other message of the same kind is: that author tagged all "friends" in that message, so all friends of those "friends" are getting notification, including me. I replied that message asking my friend: Do you endorse this commercial message? One person of the "friends" replied and say this author will be de-friended. If that person followed my way of adding friends, she wouldn't add that author as friend in the first place.

Compare to facebook, I like Google Plus better. I know that Google+ is described as "Ghost City" at this time. It is not that friendly, and there is not that many tricks to play, so it is not getting too much attention. But in each notification email of "xxx added you on Google+", you can see the reminder saying that if you don't know that person, you don't have to follow her back. That is a very heart-warming reminder because it takes the obligation off your shoulder.

Another thing that is different between Facebook and Google+ (and the other reason why I don't like facebook) is that Facebook put all friends together, while Google+ allows you to create different "circles" to separate your friends. To maintain the friendship in Google+ is not a trivial task, same as maintaining friendship in reality. Facebook simplified this structure, but I don't think that is a good thing.