Facebook my own experience +

This week we discussed about Facebook and its many implications. It is a social networking site that was created for college students. In recent years it opened up to everyone with Internet access. It is the largest social networking site in the world.

At first I agreed with Michael Bugeja, in that it Facebook destroyed interpersonal skills and didn’t supply any benefits other than staying in contact with other people. Then I started using Facebook. I began to treat it with skepticism, and with an open mind started an evaluation trial. At first I tried to keep my usage down to a minimum, because I know of many people who are Facebook addicts. As I started to use it I found that it became very useful.

I don’t have a cell phone so many texts regarding events and other bits of news hardly ever came to me. I began to get that info that was generally set out by text. I became more up-to-date about what was going on with my friends. I DJ and a lot of the dances I DJ are free and we try to get as many people as we possibly can. It is interesting that I have been able to gauge how many people are coming by Facebook response to the event invites. Our largest event had about 4,000 people and with in the first day of it being posted, we had thousands of invites spread across Facebook.

I read two interesting articles on line. This article http://www.newfangled.com/a_professional_opinion_of_social_networks made me think about the growth rate of Facebook. Two years ago it was growing at 260%. That is explosive. It is now larger than MySpace. That means Facebook could be in the top ten largest countries (if it was a country). It also gave reference to how much people feel connected to their friends even when they don’t see them very often.

Another article is http://vwgli.wordpress.com/2008/08/11/are-social-networking-websites-such-as-facebook-beneficial-for-society/. This article made me think about my own experience with Facebook. I got on Facebook to keep in touch with friends who are attending different colleges and universities. Now I have met more people I wouldn’t have met otherwise. I am becoming friends with my friend’s friends. My own personal social capital is growing to be very beneficial. I see society becoming closer due to social networking sites, because they are making distances a small factor in who we meet and interact with.