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If you think you have a large following of friends on Facebook, you don’t know Barry Davis. At one point he had close to 4,000 friends. Davis is a sophomore computer science major at SDSU and an avid Facebooker (although he has never touched the game Farmville).

Ben: How many friends do you have on Facebook?

Barry: I have about 2,600 friend right now.

Ben: You recently removed a bunch of friends, how many did you get rid of?

Barry: I just got rid of about 1,000 friends. I went through all of them and weaved out different criteria of friends that I didn’t really think I needed.

Ben: Why did you decide to remove all those friends?

Barry: I kept a majority of the people that live in North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota; people that I’ve known or partied with in those areas.

Ben: Have you ever met someone with more friends than you on Facebook?

Barry: Before I did the deleting, no. I had not seen anybody. I’m starting to get down into the 2,200 range so I’m getting back to normal.

Ben: How well do you have to know someone in order to add them as a friend?

Barry: When I began Facebook, there was no privacy, and people could click and add you no matter what and automatically they’re your friend. Before, I didn’t care. We would have 50 plus mutual friends. That was more of the thing.

Ben: You’re from the small town of Ipswich, S.D. How did you acquire so many friends being from such a small community? You said you have a lot of friends from North Dakota. How did you meet those people?

Barry: From fifth grade to seventh or eighth grade we had basketball tournaments. We had numerous tournaments in North Dakota, like AAU style. So you met a lot of people through that, through the hotel scene. Throughout high school I had track meets and state events. You meet everyone through track, so that is probably the biggest reason why I had so many friends.

Ben: What is your favorite aspect of Facebook?

Barry: I’m starting to like the apps more. Right away they get kind of annoying when people send you requests numerous times, but if you find the right one, that’s really fun.

Ben: How many hours do you spend on Facebook each day?

Barry: I feel like I’m on it a majority of my day including some of my classes. You see that around for everybody. They may not be using it all the time, but it’s always open.

Ben: What would you say to people that think Facebook is a waste of time?

‘Barry: I would say that they’re wrong on that because it’s a good way to keep in touch with your family members. With the new Facebook chat, it’s a good way to make sure you can still communicate with them. It’s a great way to meet people in your class and talk to them.

Ben: What is your view on privacy? Are you a pretty open guy with all your information?

Barry: I was up until about two months ago. I didn’t really have any privacy on my Facebook. I didn’t really care who added me. And then about a -month-and-a-half or two months ago I put up privacy settings to where they couldn’t see anything except my profile picture and basic information and know that this is the person I met.

Ben: Do you think it’s important to be open while online?

Barry: You know who you can talk to. There’s certain times where you can be open, and other times it will stab you in the back if you’re too open.

Ben: When someone is searching for you, how much do you want them to see?

Barry: I’d say it would be alright to leave some photos up so they can tell this is actually the person that they met. On Facebook you can pretty much be who you want. It’s kind of like a second personality.

Ben: Do you use other social networks besides Facebook?

Barry: I used Twitter last year for class.

Ben: Was that with Greg? I’ve interviewed him before. What did you think of using Twitter in the classroom?

Barry: It was kind of fun, I’m not gonna lie. Wherever you went you had to Twitter, like say what you did and you can respond to everyone else. It was kind of fun.

Ben: Do you see that going somewhere in the future at SDSU?

Barry: I do. I think it should be a huge part. I really thought Twitter was a good idea. Twitter, Facebook and social networks should be a huge thing for college now.

Ben: Last question: do you FarmVille?

Barry: Actually, I am one of the very few of my friends I know that doesn’t use FarmVille. The majority of people that I know have started using this new app called “Spartacus” from the famous TV series. Spartacus is my FarmVille.

Barry is still working on bringing his number of Facebook friends down to a “normal number,” but that doesn’t mean his isn’t still one of the most socially networked guys at SDSU.

If you or someone you know would like to have your story in The Collegian, let us know. Send us an email with your story to [email protected].