Facebook

Social networking sites have become the new way of connecting for many people. I personally have a Facebook account. From my experience with it i have found some ways that it allows for connections with people as well as offers useless things.
In Lisa Davis' article "Does Facebook Replace Face Time or Enhance It?" she never comes to an actual conclusion but does touch on a few topics that I felt explained how my use of Facebook is beneficial to me.
Davis states that, "online sociability and offline silence probably have less to do with digital retreating than time management." I agree with this statement because I am a full-time student who works two part-time jobs and is planning a wedding. I don't have time to go online or talk on the phone until later in the evening when most people are sleeping. So Facebook allows me to update my friends and family on what I am doing by pictures and e-mail. This has been helpful in allowing me to keep in contact with my family back east about the wedding preparations since they aren't here to help. It allows me to get feedback from them when they have a chance to go online so we don't have to try and schedual a time to talk over the phone and allows them by using pictures to visually see what I'm discussing.
Davis also brings up that "although social networking sites typically encourage connections among strangers-Facebook is geared toward helping people maintain existing connections." I fall into the category of those who use Facebook to connect with those people I know in 'actual life.'My friends on Facebook range from family, to co-workers to high school and college friends. While I use the site this way there are many people who feel the need to have hundreds to thousands of friends. I think it becomes almost a game to them to see how many friends they can get.
Although I am obviously a fan of Facebook, I also find therer are many extra features Facebook offers that could go.
One feature the site offers is the ability to 'poke' your friends. This has evolved to not only virtually poking but also allows you to fight crime with your friend, throw a snowball and even fling a thong at them. I find this application quite annoying and a waste of my time and I often ignore them when a friend sends me one of these. The newest trend is to now use one of hundreds of applications that allow you to send gifts to your friends. The newest gift giving application is "Willy's Sweet Shop," which allows you to send virtual candy gifts to your friends. At times these applications can be annoying and useless. However this particular applications states,"Willy's Easter Sweet Shop is a fun new game that lets you share Easter sweets with your friends. The more you play the more Chocolate Eggs you can earn; one of which might contain a Golden Ticket!! Best of all, playing helps raise money for the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. You can see the money raised each week with Cause's 100% transparency on our "About" page."
Now I am a very skeptical person and I am not sure how much truth there is to the donation to the St. Jude's, but in my mind this is one application I would consider using and bothering others with if I knew for sure that donations were being made for my using the application.