Facebook addict. (facebook.com)

Member Name: Holidaying

Product:	facebook.com
Date:	28/01/09 (49 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Keep in touch with and learn more about your friends.

Disadvantages: Addictive, time consuming, applications.

Facebook is what is known as a social networking site. This suggests that people actually network using it and I think that this is normally untrue. This is because most people only have their friends on there, which means people that they've met and have formed at least the briefest of attachments too.

Facebook is easy to sign up to. It took me about five minutes. It is also free. When you sign up you have to create a profile. You can leave this blank but it is not very interesting for your friends. You have the chance to write a little bit about yourself, such as your taste in music, books and films. You can also add a photo.

These fatures are nice and allow you to learn a little bit more about your friends then you might have done previously. For example, I do not knowall of the music that my friends listen to, but I can read what they've written on their profile and feel I've got to know them a little bit better.

When you add friends and they add you, you can see their profile and they can see yours. There are different privacy settings so if you want, you can prevent the friends of your friends having a look at your profile. I think that this is a really good idea because even on the internet people do want some privacy. There are issues these days with identity fraud, as we all know. I think that if Facebook did not have these privacy settings, then there would not be as many people signed up to it.

There is an instant message feature called Facebook Chat which is similar to msn. It is useful to have this in the same place so that you can chat to your friends who are online while you're looking at your Facebook account, rather than have to open msn to chat to them.

There is also an email facility so that people can send private messages to their friends. Again this element of privacy is part of what makes Facebook so popular now.

On the negative side, Facebook is very addictive. It takes people away from their work and they can find themselves checking it all of the time. I know that I check my Facebook a lot and I do find it distractive.

There are also a lot of applications that people invite you to add and this takes a long time, and involves the application finding out all of the personal data that you have on Facebook. I haven't used any applications because I do not like the idea of this. It is also another time consuming and distractive element and is not really necessary for the basics of keeping in touch with your friends.

Summary: Facebook.