The benefits of Facebook
While I do think that Facebook has run a little far afield from what it was when we all joined, I still use and appreciate it for what it was originally: a way to keep in touch. Yes, we are bombarded with graffiti walls and applications but we don’t have to use them. It is still within our power to choose to keep Facebook, at least in terms of our own profiles and uses, just how we want it. For all the additions and changes that Facebook has made, I still feel much safer than I did on mySpace and I still love to use it.
It is unfortunate that using the site cuts down on personal communication, even between people who are close enough to talk face to face. When I think about it, it it a little ridiculous that I will sit and read my friends profiles and send them notes via facebook when a lot of the time the people I’m keeping in touch with are just down the hall or across the quad. However, when it comes to keeping in touch with people who aren’t that close, Facebook fulfills it’s purpose for me.
I’ve become more aware of this fact over the last year as many of my friends have graduated or moved very far away. Facebook is now our primary means of communication. The days of writing long newsy letters or emails and calling all your friends regularly just to see what’s up have gone by the way side for the most part. People just don’t have that kind of time anymore. As much as I would like to have time to call all my friends every week or so to find out what’s up I just don’t have the time. So I prefer to be able to see what they’re up to, look at photos of where they went last weekend and exchange messages a few times a week than lose touch with them all together. One of my childhood friends moved to California a couple years ago and Facebook has been an amazing way to keep in touch and honestly, were it not for Facebook, I would probably know very little about what’s going on in her life. I think we will all appreciate Facebook a little more for its ability to keep us connected when we graduate and it stops being primarily a way to kill time.
New around here? ...you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks much for visiting!