Social Networking CPL 2.0

• Why do you think social networking sites are so popular? What are the main appeal factors? OR• For you, is Facebook useful or a time-waster?

First of all, Facebook is the one thing I have kept doing. The reason is that I can communicate with my family in England, Vancouver and Friends in Calgary all at once. They can see updated pictures of my family and if they post their birthdays I get a reminder so that I may be a good relative and remember their birthday. So I believe that communication is the reason for the popularity. I also find Facebook easy to use (even when they change the entire look of the pages). To an extent it can be a time-waster (and an addiction) to social network.

My second point would be that connection to the outside world doesn't seem to come in the form of too many conversations these days, but you can Blog, Tweet, Facebook, My Space etc until you are blue in the face and who doesn't love seeing someone make a comment on their post or add a new photo?! I have reconnected with people I went to school with, so I find that if I limit myself per day it is a great tool. When abused it is an incredible time waster..."MUST PLAY FARMVILLE!!!!!!" In fact the customers at the library are in a state of panic if the public computers are down and they are unable to farm for the day or post pictures (one of the most asked set of questions we get is about downloading things or doing things on Facebook - I find we do not have time to help with these requests, nor can they download anything from our public computers unless pictures are on a memory drive...no new applications can be downloaded either)

As far as "My Space", I find it to be a poor copy cat of Facebook. You can download music and blog and do many things, yes, but there is not the variety or depth to it as there is with Facebook.

If this gets out of control and my free time is no longer free, I may have to leave Facebook behind as well.