Facebook is hilarious. For example, I just checked it, and a girl I went to middle school and high school just posted a link to her blog. She's the girl who went from dirty slut to saved by jesus at some point, and I haven't seen her in 3+ years. I am in tears. This girl was taking it in the ass sophmore year of high school, and the only long term boyfriend I know of dumped her by calling her a "white trash honky-tonky bitch". Also, at least 8 people I knew from high school have gotten fat. A few just couldn't shed the freshman 15 (or 30), but a handful went from all-state athletes to lard asses. I'm talking 80+ pounds heavier. Other than that, I use facebook to send out and accept invitations to parties/concerts/events, and occasionally chat with people I don't see often. My good friends whom I don't see often get phone calls, however. It's a lot nicer to speak to someone you actually care about rather than send messages.
When Facebook first became available to people outside of college networks, I was a senior in high school. At the time, it seemed like a fad that would fade away by the end of the year, and we would all forget about it. That makes it about six years since I originally signed up, and I can't really say it has changed my life at all, except for staying in touch with more people outside of my close-knit group of friends. On a different note, I recently joined Twitter and have a totally different view of it. I rarely tweet any updates, and hardly follow anyone I know, but damn it is awesome. I follow Sports Center, Adam Shefter, The Mort Report, etc., etc., and get all my breaking sports news through twitter. That is really the only benefit I have seen.
Facebook does hae some good uses (like free advertising) and I have re-connected with some old friends, but its endless stupid games and the fact that once you have a few dozen people as "friends" you get sent endless shit that you would never dare read. I check Facebook once, maybe twice a week. To some people, it's their whole lives when they're not texting someone on their $800 cell phone. Myspace is useless and I can't imagine why anybody liked it in the first place. Is it bankrupt yet? Why not?
I first signed up for facebook when it was university/college students only. For a while it was neat seeing shit about people from highschool or whatever- but a while ago I realised that I don't give a shit. So I deleted everyone from my friend list who isn't at least mildly interesting. I blocked every application that does anything other than let people update their news feed from an external program and kicked my settings around until everything was restricted to my friends only and the only things I see are news feed, photos and notes. I then pull that shit into an RSS reader, that also follows twitter and google buzz and my friends blogs and the news and geek shit that I read - so I see one feed list that I can just blank if I feel like it. Reading through the process after the fact, it sounds ludicrously complicated and I can't fucking believe I bothered - but it is now actually a reasonably useful and interesting service where I get to skim through what my friends are up to and see their pictures if I feel like it, without any particular effort.
Problem is that most folks don't make nothing but dogshit out of it. I mean, yeah, it's got a ton of potential, but that same potential was pissed away in the interest of making worthless applications and god only knows what else. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy forums and online communicating, but things like Facebook don't provide a lot of serious discussion on topics. Hell, that's why I like this place so much. A group of reasonably intelligent people get together and shoot the shit at their leisure. Dipshits get weeded out and things are learned on a regular basis. It's fucking gold. Facebook is the opposite of that, and if you really want to let others know what's going on in your life, tell them in fucking person! If you can't be bothered to let me know while I'm looking you in the eye, then does it really matter that much? Now, that being said, it's an excellent communication tool for those who need to get in touch with people overseas, or other long distances, but it doesn't seem like it's being used for anything meaningful, which is much of my problem with it. I don't know, maybe I just grew up too fast.
I've been on Facebook since '06 when I went away to school. I've been writing about boxing for three years now, and it has been an amazing way to network within the business and to promote the website I write for, our radio show, and my writing. It's incredible how many boxing people are on the site. From old time fighters like Junior "Poison" Jones to promoters like Craig Goossen. I got Terry Norris on our radio show thanks to contact within Facebook. As far as my friends go, I usually just post funny shit that pops into my head or I hear elsewhere. It's kinda sad when you go to the bar and people come up to you and tell you that your Facebook statuses are hilarious and that they look forward to them daily.
I joined Facebook pretty early on (before the newsfeed, chat and when it was just for college students). I used to hate it and only kept it to be invited to events. Then I went back to Iraq and fell in love. When most people deploy every relative who knows you exist (and probably didn't give a shit) comes out of the wall, but you don't have time to keep in touch. I try to avoid emails because they will get forwarded to high hell and I would rather maintain my privacy. Solution FB wall posts and posting pictures, posting that I got ahold of an espresso machine was money. The chat feature was also awesome because what little downtime I did get tended not to correlate with western time, so just get on FB and chat with some night owl as an escape from the 20 Joes you live with every second. I even managed to line up a lay from an ex my first week back. Combined with being able to check out pics from the "World" really really helped with the homesickness. Now I basically use it for the same things, just to keep in touch with all of my scattered friends and check who lives where for when I need a place to crash.
"Oooooh who is laughing now, hot girl in high school I jerked off thinking about I am big man and you just big, ho ho ho, I win you lose Well heeeeello there her friend who also was in HS but still kept her looks. I will jerk off to you just for novelty sake.
I find it creepy when people I haven't spoken with in months ask me how my recent trips and developments have been. It's always awkward when they say "oh I heard you went to Spain or something, right?" but we both know they went through my photo albums on facebook. I pruned a ton of my non-friend acquaintances and had to deal with awkward conversation at some parties recently. "So... if I attempt to add you this time would you accept, Supertramp? Because I could swear we used to be friends on facebook." Tense. I only keep my facebook because I'm trying to social network my side-projects (a rarely updated lifestyle blog written with 5 other guys) and it's a tremendous tool. I still haven't adopted twitter but I reckon I will have to eventually. Otherwise, I think it's cooler to either not have a facebook or use it to keep contacts only. No one cares if you're "drunk as shit tnight!!".
I use facebook purely as a way to connect while travelling. My life/part-time consultancy work takes me to cities all over. It provides a very convenient way for me to post a status of 'Toddus is in ******** if anyone fancies a drink'. With this exception of this I fucking hate the thing. Recently a friend posted her due date as being 2 weeks before expected. Not being aware she was ever pregnant I went onto her wall and followed the history of it. In under a minute I had worked out she has announced to the world she was pregnant roughly 6 weeks in. I am now actively wishing a miscarriage if only to allow me the chance to post on her wall 'this is why you don't announce everything to the world'.
Because I work at home and programming can be very boring, I check Facebook a few times per day, usually from my phone. I honestly couldn't tell you why, though. Sure I don't mind looking at who my exes are dating or engaged/married to and measuring my superiority, but I can only do that for so long. Lame as it sounds, part of me wishes itwas easier on Facebook to actually be introduced to people in your area. Again, I'm at home 9 hours a day just for work and have not been as proactive in meeting new people in my area as I would have liked. It seems MySpace, while a complete pain in the ass to use, was better for meeting new people (and sleeping with the attractive, female people) while Facebook is for those you know to any degree. Can Twitter even be called a Social Networking tool? It's like a text message fornicated with an RSS feed. That said, most of the people I follow on Twitter I do so in hopes they'll be funny.