The purpose of Facebook is to enable communication and relationship maintaining/building without having to be physically with that person or talk with them. It also lets you distribute information once instead of telling each person you know individually.
Here are a few instances where Facebook has been beneficial:
- My mom had a medical accident, she slipped in the tub and hit her head, broke her elbow and had a concussion at 1am. We were planning on going to a family reunion that day, but we didn’t know if we’d be able to make it. So I posted a Facebook status update informing everyone about this, thus our extended family knew immediately why we arrived late. (Mom’s fine now, and of course the medical incident cost her zero dollars, yay health care!)
– My sister moved to England as a part of a cool job placement. She was able to find people who worked at the same place and make friends with them while still here in Canada because Facebook lets you say where you work. Even better, one of her new friends offered to pick her up at the airport, and he was nice enough to even leave a note for my parents in Facebook when my sister arrived at the hotel.
– Even though I have a blog where I talk about my crafts, I often post a photo and a one-line text summary to Facebook. Many people have told me how they follow along with my crafting adventures and how they enjoy doing so! My crafts bring a sparkle to their day. That makes me feel great, knowing that my items give other people a smile.
There are many people I don’t have time to interact with on a personal level, but whose lives I enjoy watching over. Facebook allows you to do this. Does it say something about that level of friendship? Yes, but in my mind technology has changed certain aspects of friendship. In my experiences so far technology has allowed me and other friends to follow our own lives but still remain in touch at a low cost effort (versus calling someone up on the phone). Maybe I would call these people quasi-friends, but at least I remain somewhat connected to them versus never seeing or talking with them ever!