Facebook

I was thinking about how Facebook and other social networking sites are (and blogs for that matter). I think it’s supposed to be really informative about people you know, and help share ideas and info; and communicate better. I think in theory it really can be this way, but I find that I have used it more for the purpose of feeling like I am prying into someone’s personal life without them really asking and wasting any opportunity to actually learn something. In theory I think it’s a great idea, but it seems like the majority of the time I find myself using it in a completely pointless kind of way. Like trying to find out how to add some stupid application or looking at what groups people are in. All of which are complete time wasters and don’t really accomplish anything in terms of getting to know people better or (even crazier) actually communicating with people in a valuable way. I guess that’s not really the point, and it’s supposed to be a huge time waster, but it seems like it has a lot of potential to be a good tool to share information.

I compare it to AOL instant messenger, which was pretty different in that you have access to a much more limited area of personal expression via the profile, which was just a small window. Facebook (and MySpace) has an almost unlimited amount of information that could be displayed on the profile, and many more avenues for communication. And in that way it is more valuable.

But I find that with the greater potential there is also a greater amount of effort put into developing your own profile as opposed to learning more about others and their thoughts. Granted, most of the time the information provided by other people (and probably myself) is plain useless, but sometimes there are things written or shared that are worthy of notice. Maybe I just wish there were more focus on thoughtful posts and discussions, and less on some of the pointless stuff like being a member of a group that doesn’t accomplish anything whatsoever and is just a placeholder because the title of it is funny (or not funny).

Anyway, those were just some thoughts on that.