I’m Finally Using Facebook

I’ve been hearing about Facebook for a long time now. I pictured it as a website mostly for high school and college students to post all their photos of each other drinking and such things, which I was not really interested in being a part of. Recently, I was speaking to a friend on the phone who I haven’t seen for a while, and I asked him if he has any recent photos online. He said he had some on Facebook. So…I finally went and checked it out.

During the registration process, I wasn’t paying attention and accidentally sent a “Friend Request” to everyone in my e-mail address book using Facebook. It’s a pretty cool feature, but there are several people in my address book that I haven’t talked to in a while, and didn’t want the first contact to be an impersonal invite, but oh well. Turns out there are at least 30 people I know using Facebook and it has been a great opportunity to reconnect with people from college, former coworkers, and friends I’ve lost touch with.

I’m beginning to explore the features of Facebook, like photo ablums, quizzes, and friend’s profiles. So far I’m most impressed with the social networking, meaning pretty much everything is available for all to see. For instance, I listed “hiking” as one my pastimes. I can click on the word “hiking” and it will show me a list of everyone else who listed “hiking” as a pastime in my network (which is Concord, NH, because that was the closest option to Plymouth). If I choose, I can start a conversation with any of those people, add them to my friends list (with their approval), or “poke” them. Two of my favorite applications so far are the “Books” and “Cities I’ve Visited” applications. In the “Books” one, I can tell everyone what books I’ve read, plan to read, and are currently reading. This has caused me to realize just how many books I’ve read, which is more that I would have guessed! In the “Cities I’ve Visited” application, I can put a pin on a map of the world for every city or town I’ve visited. It’s neat to look at the map and see just how many places I’ve been!

Most likely I will not be participating in the silly things, like throwing snowballs, hugging, or super-poking, but it’s nice to know I can if the mood strikes me. Facebook seems like it’s going to be a good way to keep in touch with people, especially ones that I would not call or e-mail often. *poke*

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