What's the purpose of Facebook?

2 or 3 years ago, the point was to create a central hub where you could easily keep in contact with friends, family, classmates, etc. It was an organization tool that made planning and communication more efficient. Now, there isn’t much point.

The basis is still to communicate with people who you may not see on a daily basis. But there is a lot more “fluff” which is targeted at making you do more than what I just outlined.

To talk to people without being charged for text messages, to share pictures, thoughts, etc. with your friends all at once; basically, the point is connection to a large group of people who may not all live right next to each other and thus it is more convenient to communicate by means of the internet. It’s also useful to organize groups and provide updates and news bulletins about important events and functions within those groups to all the members of the group. I don’t know if those are good enough reasons for you, but they work for me.

I actually talk to people that I talk to, if you know what I mean. Some of my friends are so close that I can open the window and yell. My group consists of about six people and two cats these days; it works.

@gailcalled

Well, that’s why it’s for a larger group. If there’s only a small group of people you’re interested in communicating with, you might not find Facebook that useful.

Another cool perk of it is that at least for me, I get information about other people whom I’m going to college with and get to see the page designed for the residence hall I’ve been assigned to and all that. My friend was exploring his college class Facebook group and met a girl there who lived 500 miles away in Oregon. Now they’re dating. :)

I personally use it for entertainment…I like the games. I also am friends with lots of my family who live across the nation, and they can see pictures of my son.
But, I’m also the “weirdo” that comments on your page if I’m friends with you, so I do keep up with whoever has things in the news feed. I don’t befriend someone unless I feel comfortable talking to them on facebook.

@gailcalled I really don’t know either. People that I wasn’t friends with in school want to be my “friend” now. It’s the strangest thing. Then when I accept them, they never say anything to me, which is okay by me.

@DominicX: I can see where Facebook makes sense for the perk that you mentioned. I will spare you the mechanisms by which we met people when I started college.

@chyna; I told you we share a gene pool.By the way, MIlo presented me with mouse #24 this evening.

@gailcalled Milo is such a caring, loving cat that he brings you presents all the time. Molly says hello.

@gailcalled

Yeah, well, we meet people that way too. Despite popular belief, today’s teenagers are not completely incapable of communicating using something that doesn’t involve a screen. Facebook is fun for me. If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t be using it.

And it’s most likely that my friend would not have met the Oregonian girl if not for Facebook. It’s a way to eliminate the problem of distance in the possibility of relationships. Of course, that’s not unique to Facebook, that’s just a function of the internet in general.

it was created by young people to a) confound old folks and b) give people something to talk about (the news, other old people, people who are on facebook and want to let you know).

it’s the weather of the 21st century.

It’s, in effect, a virtual Class Reunion where you get to pretend you turned out better than the people you went to high school with. (and have more gooder grammar.)

I talk in person with about a dozen people on a regular basis, I have known hundreds of people though and I can keep in contact with all of them in a smaller way via Facebook.

For example I had one good friend in middle school and he is in the army now but I can still talk to him on Facebook even though I lost his phone number years ago.

I can get back in though with people who i lost contact with completely simply by searching for their name.

I can post information on group events and invite the relevant people to the event via Facebook.

Companies such as Burgerville advertise new menu items to Facebook “Fans” who voluntarily signed up to be fans and can stop receiving notifications while remaining fans.

A co-worker of mine found some long-lost family members on Facebook.

Etc.

There is also lots of stupid shit like games, surveys with no point, and what have you.

To Make Money – plain and simple.

To waste bandwidth by giving people something else to do besides download Japanese anima and hentai.

I share information and learn a great deal from my family and friends near and far on Facebook. We dash off quick notes to each other, give advice, share photos, direct each other to interesting sites, educate and support each other, and generally have a good laugh with each other’s comments. It’s fast and free. As for the games and surveys, to each their own. I actually like collecting eggs (Hatchlings) and playing Mafia Wars. I don’t watch tv, this is what I do instead. My favorite thing is to check out what my friends are reading, too, in LivingSocial. I can also be a “fan” of places or things, and chat with people who have similar interests. I taught my mother and father how do it, and they chat with the other members of the family and their friends, now too. It’s great.

For me, the purpose was to be reunited with someone I knew 20 years ago and is now my girlfriend!

not such a loser after all, I guess!

@gailcalled: Wait. You mean you’re not reading my status updates?!?

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!

The best thing I’ve used facebook for is to get back in contact with friends who I’d lost touch with over the years. I found my best friend from elementary school, who I hadn’t talked to in almost 15 years, and now we chat every few weeks – I even got to go to her baby shower last month! Another friend who I haven’t seen in close to 20 years just found me and told me she’s going to be in town this weekend, so I’m going to meet up with her too.

Usually, once I find someone and we get back in contact, our relationship sort of moves away from Facebook and into the phones and email world, but Facebook is a good way to find old friends when you have no contact info for them and haven’t been able to track them down…

To steal our lives, and convince us we have friends, when in reality, we are only capable of making friends on the internet. At least in my case.

@All: Interesting info. Thanks. I have a network of friends and acquaintances on my college class list-serv. They provide the same kind of info, support, shared experiences and instant free connection that Facebook apparently does.

I have a similar list-serv for my HS class, although we are less effective.

@Harold; I figure that if you win “Winebar of the Year,” I’ll hear about it. Love, Maude.

I’m wondering who this Gail __________ person (with a fetching black & white photo) is that I’ve been friends with on Facebook for several months now. :-\

@robmandu: Might that be “Gail, The Very Early Years”?

it depends on what you want to use it for. some people join to play the stupid games on there. some people join to interact with people. i think it’s actually great for talking to people that you either don’t see very often, or do see often, but don’t mind talking to a little more frequently.
it’s not terribly personal, but it’s good for quick updates and catching up with people. mostly everything is public (to those on your friends list, at least), unless you fiddle with the settings, or message someone (which is always private).

@All: Thank you. I’ve gotten the point, again again and again.

@all To my shock and surprise, I find that I AM a member. There is a motley collection of messages there; most of which make little sense. I do see a small discussion between my two nieces about our family reunion a week ago. I probably won’t check in for another year.

@breedmitch: I saw something from you but it seemed to be directed at the world in general. The format seems to be a hodgepodge. I’ll stick to email and fluther, thanks.

i am coming late to this discussion but i will answer anyway. my half sister (paternal) found me on facebook. i have not seen her in almost 35 years (put it this way: I don’t remember meeting her). that was a great thing. that put me in touch with my dad, who i lost touch with.

when i was in high school and college, facebook did not exist. i can see why young people have hundreds of friends – because it’s a lot of people from high school, college, and then every job they ever worked at where they had friends. if facebook were around when i was in high school, i would not now be wondering what happened to my long lost high school friends – if they have kids, what career they ended up in, etc. what my friends, family, and long lost friends (for example i found my babysitter from 1st and 2nd grade) do is little updates on vacations, what we’re doing today, what’s making us happy or sad today, what’s going on. i love it.