They also recommended that I become friends with my mother...

...but only because we both attended the same high school.

@lehrdude:
I absolutely refuse to friend my mother or any of my friend's mothers.

There are lots of things about Facebook that are hard to understand. I can only assume that the people who run it, simply have not thought out the repercussions of things they do.

For instance, I'm having trouble figuring out what the difference is between "Live Feed" and "News Feed," and how they both relate to "Status Update." Different things come up depending on which one I click, but the rhyme and reason for what's displayed and what isn't, is not apparent. Now, somewhere inside the bowels of Facebook, this distinction IS, no doubt, meaningful. And to users who are obsessed with Facebook and who delve into its own internal jargon, it might also be meaningful. But to the casual user, the phrases "Live Feed" and "News Feed" are not intuitive, and therefore aren't very useful.

I've been instructed at least 3 times now to "poke" my closest friend's fiancée. I don't think she'd appreciate that much.

@PsiCop: Here's my best guess about Live Feed/News Feed...

Live feed is everything, in order, with the most recent at the top. It updates with new items when you reload.

News Feed is the most popular items (mainly status updates that have been commented on the most) in the last...who knows how long, probably a day.

At least, this seems to be the distinction, judging by what's showing up on mine now.

I sent a screenshot of this new "feature" to a friend of mine b/c Facebook recommended that I "help her find more friends."

LOL

I laugh every time it tells me that "So-and-so only has three friends! Suggest friends for them."

But no, I don't like it.

@PsiCop: Live Feed is everything; News Feed is highlights.

PC Magazine told me so.

@PsiCop: The Status Update feed only has status updates-- so no links, photos, or anything else your friends post.

The Life Feed is the most up to date feed with everything in it.

News Feed is 9+ hours old for me, so I've been ignoring it.

I stay off FB and therefore don't have any of these problems, I stay in touch with my real friends through telephone, e-mail, letters and actual in person visits. Yes most of these people are also on FB and they keep trying to get me to get on and I keep ignoring them so I'm afraid that eventually the fact that we are not FB friends will slowly erode my actual friendship with them.

@SadSam: You do realize that joining Facebook does not mean you are restricted to communicating only via Facebook, right?

@Esquire99:

Is this why?

Can you hear me spirits? Poke once for yes, twice for no.

I'm in the same boat as Margo. I have a friend who passed away in July and she keeps popping up in the reconnect thing. I know it's just a computer picking people I haven't interacted with recently, but it is kind of weird when it pops up.

I hate Facebook, and all those damn social networking sites.
And then they put a social network(twitter) inside a social network(facebook), which does not make any sense.
And now everyone wants to integrate some kind of social network into their site.

These people who are your "so called" on these sites, 99% of them ain't really your friends. Would they really help you out if you need help. These sites should change the friends to acquaintances, cause that's really what they are.

All social networking sites need to DIE.

@diasdiem: +1 internets.

@Megladon: Hahaha. It took me a few minutes to figure out that it was satire. Hysterical.

@katstermonster: Oh, duh....it's The Onion. I didn't see that at first. Scary, how well they captured the feel of a morning show.

@SadSam: Dude, just do what I do. Open an account, use it for two weeks, and then never visit it again. No one will care or notice if you keep seeing them IRL.

In Facebook's defense, how are they supposed to know that your friend is deceased? They have a mechanism in place, mentioned above at [www.facebook.com] to and even recently published a story on it at [blog.facebook.com]

Yeah, Ive been prompted to "reconnect" with my grandma twice now. She died October 10th, so it hasn't been 30 days yet. It still makes me incredibly sad, though.

@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): Re: "News Feed is highlights."

This only leads to another question: What's the definition of a "highlight," as opposed to something else?

This is exactly the problem I'm describing: Facebook loves to define things on its own without any kind of intuitive reference.

@geekgrrl77: I agree. I like Live feed and I don't like News feed. For me, Live Feed is like Twitter except useful.

@PsiCop: Highlights is a filter based on your previous Facebook activity. It's skewed towards the people the algorithm thinks are your best friends, based on how much you look at their pages, comment on their activity, etc. If those people aren't doing anything on Facebook recently, the page isn't going to update much.

My highlights feed, by the way? Mostly other men's wives. (Old school friends.) Good thing that's not open to misinterpretation, right?

@katstermonster: I think she'd appreciate it less if he poked you.

I haven't logged into facebook in a while (couple of weeks?) and have started getting messages from friends in a similar situation, since facebook has suggested they 'get back in touch' with me. Little does it know that we talk on the phone, send emails, and exchange photos outside of facebook. Shocking.

Is it prompting people to write on each others' walls because it realizes there's a massive demographic that uses it just like a self-updating phone book? At least I hope there is - I can't be the only one who only logs in when I need to look up a friend's new cellphone number, or check how to spell their spouse's name.

Isn't there a setting you can adjust so that you don't show up on that suggestions thing? I thought there was, but now I can't find anything about it. I really don't want Facebook telling random people to become my friend especially after I've removed myself from searches, etc.

Dammit I'm going to haunt Facebook so look out peeps...

@Michael Bauser: In other words, Facebook is deciding for itself what I want to see.

Woops. That's a non-starter. I prefer to see what I decide to see. Not what Facebook assumes I want to see. If I wanted to see what FB assumes I wanted to see, I'd click on a link that says, "Feed based on our baseless assumptions about you."

I much prefer a real-time chronological-order feed, which shows me what I expect to see based on objective criteria.

@subtlefrog: Ha! +1 Zing!

@lmarconi: It's the Live Feed I want to see. But I can't seem to make it the "default." FB demands that I look, first, either at "Status Updates," which means I miss a lot of stuff that doesn't happen to be someone's status update, or "News Feed," which is FB's baseless assumption of what I want to see, which changes the order of everything, and leaves out stuff, based on criteria I don't know about.

Give me "Live Feed" again, FB, and don't force me to look at something else first. Is that too much to ask? (I guess it is. For reasons that elude me, seen as how I don't work inside FB and am not "up" on things they determine, internally, to be important.)

Of course, the "reconnect" feature doesn't just encourage us to interact with the dead-it also suggests that we stay in touch with people we might be in contact with every day. Or who we don't want to be in contact with at all.

Oh, and use greasemonkey, stylish, or adblock to remove that panel

@SadSam: I organically grow my own Facebooks in my backyard garden using only compost created from my adopted infant's Peekaru leftovers. It takes a little extra time, but at least I know I'm not supporting corporate Facebooks.

Last week I noticed Facebook suggested I "stay connected" with my husband. The photo was of the two of us. How thoughtful / funny / creepy.

The Facebook iPhone app only gives you Newsfeed as an option (no live feed), which is irritating because Live Feed is what I really want.

My father has been a friend suggestion for months. We have different last names, live in different cities, and have no mutual friends. He's not in my email address book. I have no idea how it knows.

Facebook also wanted me to "reconnect" with my boyfriend. Pretty sure I talk to him every day.

@PsiCop: If you click "more" on the left side beneath the "Status Update" and other bars, all available bars including news feed should appear. Grab and drag "News Feed" to the top of the list and it should load automatically every time you come to the site.

@Colonel Jack O'Neill: Wow, that's a lot of bitterness.

I have moved several times in my life and am now thousands of miles from many of my friends and immediate family. I find Facebook invaluable in helping me keep in touch with them (and vice-versa), since I can't visit or talk on the phone as much as I'd like. My other FB contacts are friends who actually live in the local area and who I see in real life. My FB friends are very much my real friends.

@gStein_has joined the star bandwagon: It's not like Facebook notifies someone when you defriend them. Noticing one missing out of several hundred is impossible for most. It doesn't mean they aren't "real friends" it just means they aren't on Facebook studying their friends list daily.

Incidentally, this not notifying you when someone defriends you is a thing that bugged me about Facebook, so I wrote an app that does exactly that. Not going to link to it here, but it does exist.

@subtlefrog: LOL. so true.

@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): Yeah, that's what it keeps telling me that about my dad. Sorry dad, I'm not going to introduce you to my friends.

It suggested I reconnect with my father-in-law. I was actually at their house at the time, so I'm pretty sure I didn't need to reconnect by writing on his wall.

@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): Unfortunately the highlights seem to have no rhyme or reason ins election or order (that is, out of chronological order)

@PsiCop: Well, that's why the feeds are customizable and why you can choose *not* to see the News Feed.

@PsiCop: Also it isn't what I'd call "baseless" if indeed it's based on your previous activity. It might not be accurate in terms of what you'd like displayed, but certainly not baseless.

@Colonel Jack O'Neill: Of the people I actually added because they're someone I know and not for the pointless facebook games (and believe me, I've added *tons* of those) I'd say a good 2/3 to 3/4 would have my back in an emergency, and at least half of those who are left would pitch in if they weren't on the other seaboard or in the midwest or somesuch.

@gStein_has joined the star bandwagon: I've occasionally been defriended on facebook. It takes me a week or two to notice because some folks don't update all the time, or sometimes there's a lull...most of the time I've just said "hey, what's up?" and that's been that.

Facebook wants me to reconnect with/help improve the accounts I made to have more members for games. Huzzah!

But on a more serious note, this may not be the most well thought out feature, but is it possible all these people it's telling folks to reconnect/etc. with are ones they don't communicate much with on Facebook?

@SybilDisobedience: But I don't want to see "News Feed." I want to see "Live Feed." This is not selectable.