Facebook Launches Find Friends Nearby Feature [Updates]

Everyone’s favorite social network Facebook has launched yet another useful, yet controversial, feature. This time around it’s called Find Friends Nearby and it allows you to find potential Facebook friends who are near your current location.

According to Facebook developer Ryan Patterson the app is designed to make it easier to friend people who you meet in real life. “For me,” Ryan says, “the ideal use case of this product is one where when you’re out with a group of people whom you’ve recently met and want to stay in contact with”. The Find Friends Nearby feature will let you quickly locate the person standing next to you among the millions of people with profiles on Facebook.

Anyone with an incredibly generic name can quickly understand the appeal of this. For instance, telling someone to friend “Matt Smith” is nearly the same as telling them nothing. The immediacy of the new feature could be useful, as well, since you may not remember who you wanted to friend a few hours later when you sit down at your PC.

Critics have labeled this the “stalker app” but the feature is currently active only when you have the app open, so no one can find you if you aren’t also looking. And while the feature does let you send a friend request it does not provide detailed location information about the people found.

You should now be able to find this feature in the Other Apps section of your Facebook app on iOS and Android. If you do not see it, double-check that the app is updated to the latest version. The feature is also accessible via web browser.