CPL 2.0 Social Networking

This week's assignment is all about social networking. I've been a user of a few different social networking sites for quite a while now. I had a Friendster account in high school, migrated to Myspace in college and at some point in University switched to Facebook. Then, after moving back to Calgary after finishing University, the friends that I left behind convinced me to join Twitter. I currently use Twitter primarily, and I love that it keeps me up to date with friends who live in different parts of the country. I think we'll explore Twitter a bit more in a few weeks, so I won't go in to any more detail about it.

On to this week's question:

• For you, is Facebook useful or a time-waster?

For me, it is both of these things. I use Facebook more than I'd like. I should change the e-mail notifications that I get, so that I receive less. I tend to log in to the site after I've received a notification about something (an event invite, comment, or message.) I really don't need to be checking it more than once a week, and when I check it I tend to look over my whole news feed, which is a huge time-waster. Curiousity kills Katie's time... if a friend posts photos of something, I will look at them.

But Facebook can also be really useful, and it's my only social tie to a quite a number of people. I recently deleted a number of "friends" (I have 200 or so Facebook "friends") who I decided I wouldn't recognise if I saw them on the street, but the majority of my friends are people that I care about and Facebook is a great way of staying in contact with them.