Great way of keeping in touch with friends (facebook.com)

Member Name: londongirl

Product:	facebook.com
Date:	02/02/09 (102 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: photo sharing, instant messaging, generally being nosey!

Disadvantages: can be worried about security, can be addicitve!!

I remember when I first heard about Facebook only about 2 years ago. Someone I worked with who I didn't know very well asked me if I was on it. She was quite a few years younger than me and I assumed it was similar to Myspace or Bebo the way she was talking about it - something which has never interested me. I decided to have a look anyway and after a couple of weeks of deliberating I signed up.
There were not too many of my friends on it at that point and so I didn't really use it much at the beginning. Now however I can hardly remember life without it! It's become almost as important to my life as my mobile phone in terms of keeping in touch with friends, helping to make new friends and arranging my social life!
I check it everyday - luckily we can't check it at work, i'm very thankful as I do tend to just waste time seeing what people are up to.

Even though I am in now in my 30's and this sounds like something that a kid or teenager would say - i do actually feel that if i wasn't on facebook i'd be missing out somewhat on things that are going on with my friends! These days the first people to find out whether someone is engaged or having a baby are the people on facebook!
Birthday invites get sent by facebook first and then others later. If you are not on it you miss out!
When people post photo's and then maybe talk about them at work the following day or comment on what people have been talking about on Facebook it is quite nice to be on Facebook too so that I know what they are talking about or have seen the photo's they are talking about!

I had been worried about security of my private information before signing up but there are so many options you can choose to set your security settings as high or low as you like. You can also choose what information you choose to share on facebook anyway. I would never ever put my mobile phone number on there (even though 99% of people on facebook are my actual real life friends there are one or two i have either met online or haven't seen since primary school and don't know that well). I also don't have my full birthday on there - just day not year.

Sometimes Facebook can occasionally feel a bit intrusive but again it is only in terms of what information you choose to share - so your own fault really if you post something you don't want people to read! I do occasionally forget who I am sharing information with when I am in a bad mood or funny mood and post something cryptic or stressed out sounding as my status just because it makes me feel better, but then i sometimes get comments from people who I forget would have read it and maybe I don't want to elaborate and tell them what I was annoyed about etc!
So Facebook is all good - a great way of keeping in contact with friends but remember to only share information that you don't mind everyone knowing and think twice before accepting friend requests from people you don't really know as that is when your information starts becoming less secure.

One of the things I like best about Facebook is being able to share photos. I love seeing other peoples photos of nights out or holidays etc and you get to see photos that people would not otherwise bother bringing to show you.

There are a lot of annoying and stupid applications on Facebook that you can add or get invited to. I have taken to clicking ignore on most of these when people invite me to certain quizes or silly game things as it just clogs up your facebook page and lets the application have access to your information.

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