facebook is a tool

Kevin M.

I was just thinking, and I realized that Facebook is just another tool like cell phones and msn messenger. From a socialization standpoint, it allows you to interact with and maintain your social network. Depending on people's goals, motivations, and most importantly lifestyle it's useful to different people in different ways...and some may find it not useful at all, depending on the type of social relationships they want to maintain. For example, I deal with most of my closest friends via cell phone and in person, so it isn't necessary for us to interact on facebook. So that leaves medium strength relationships...which mainly occur on Msn and by email. What kind of relationships does that leave for facebook in a majority of cases? weak = mainstream

That's my theory, now only time will tell if it holds up haha

siuying

you forgot to include to marketing and research teams for major companies that would pay millions to get their hands on your lovely information.. fb maybe a tool.. but a very powerful tool in their eyes..

Bhambra

I love facebook :)

Its so easy to keep in touch with people from highschool ( weak) , see where they're at now and its very convienient for groups to have discussions and make plans. My favorite feature is sharing pictures :)

... But facebook was a lot better when there weren't all these applications.

baby e

Some applications are kinda cute. I built my own snowman on facebook. It entertained me while i was building it, but now....not so much :(

Kevin M.

If you think about it, facebook (or myspace for that matter) is just a standardized way for people to make personalized pages which are connected through social relationships. The difference between MySpace and Facebook is that Facebook is more "real." People use their real names and real pictures and their friends are the same friends they have in real life. Virtual life (ie. on the internet) has been merging with real life a lot over the past decade, and it's going to continue to do so, but Facebook is here to stay for better or for worse.

and yes, some of the apps are kinda cool :)

Ether

Facebook can be way more useful than more direct, personal communication.

For example: My friend is going up to Whistler all of next week. He posted this on his facebook status. I am also going up to Whistler next week. I saw his status and messaged him. I would never think to call this person up and ask if he was going to be in Whistler at the same time, but since the information is available to everyone on facebook, we can meet up and go snowboarding.

Kevin M.

But obviously you guys aren't very close friends. I didn't necessarily mean that Facebook is a bad thing, but that it facilitates weaker relationships. That is an excellent example of Facebook use by the way. Another good thing is when you're organizing parties, it's easy to notify everyone of changes etc. Or even just looking at pictures from parties/vacations. Instead of clumsily having to send them over msn one by one to each friend, you can post them once.

vonnie

I go there to post up the things I sell in the Marketplace.
Compared to other buy and sell websites, the responses that I get from the Marketplace are at LEAST 5 times faster.

Having Facebook, like you said, depends on the person's goals and motivations. I know that it's great to keep in touch with your not-as-close friends, or long lost buddies from 2nd grade, but it's also convenient.

If you have a big birthday party shindig, it's easy to make an event and invite lots of people to it, instead of calling them up one by one. Then everyone knows exactly what's going on, whereas phoning them you might miss some information.

I agree that I wouldn't use it to contact my closest friends, but if you were so close in the first place you wouldn't stop calling them so you could msg them on Facebook.

I like it, but you just gotta be careful who can see your page and who can't.