What's the deal with facebook?

Facebook is the new social networking system.

For the longest time I refused to get a facebook, fearing a profile thousands could access. It wasn't until the summer before my senior year in high school that I finally decided to set up a facebook account in order to keep in contact with with my best friend Anna who was staying in Italy for a couple of years. I wasn't very interested in the whole process at first and checked it rarely. However, when I returned to school, I found numerous friend requests and friendly messages. I met up with people from long ago that I may have never seen again if it weren't for facebook. I became a fan.

Facebook has massively replaced handwritten letters, telephone calls, and even regular emails. It's an incredibly user-friendly system that allows easy communication and individualized creativity. You can share pictures and communicate with as many of friends as you want simultaneously.

Facebook has proven to be a great system for college students in particular. We are able to keep up with out-of-state and out-of-country friends and also set up meetings with groups and clubs from school. We can help each other with homework or just chat with friends. There are some downsides to facebook such as information leakage and the "stalkers". Everyone seems to know everything about everyone if you're not careful. Invasion of privacy is the greatest problem when dealing with facebook, but you can control the majority of information and set it to private so no one else can see except your closest friends and yourself. People are aware of what they display so if everyone knows theire business it's because either they want other people to know or they don't care if they do.

For more comments on facebook see:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1213/p13s01-legn.html

or to visit facebook see:
http://www.facebook.com/index.php