For years I managed to stay away from the Facebook craze, whilst all my friends were talking about Facebook and I was looking at them, feeling pretty pleased with myself for not being so sad that I spent a lot of my time on a social networking site which pretty much was based on people leaving comments stating what they were up to. However 2 years into college, I got pulled into the obsession that the rest of the world seems to have at the moment, and I’m afraid I have yet to get out of that obsession and it just seems to get deeper and deeper each day.
What is Facebook?
Facebook is a social networking site founded back in 2004 in Massachusetts. It was originally created by Mark Zuckerberg when he was a student at Harvard University. It was originally limted to just Harvard Students however was expanded to all colleges over the Boston area, then it expanded to just University students were able to use it and then finally, any one over the age of 13 all over the world can use Facebook.
Over the past 5 years it has grown considerably, and I have to say, I don’t think I know one person over the age of 15 and below the age of 60 who isn’t at least a member of Facebook, this includes my mum, and even my nan who is over 60.
Facebook mainly allows it’s members to add friends and keep in contact with these friends. It allows the members to send messages privately, or post a message onto their wall, which allows everyone to see it. You also are able to update your personal profile to notify friends about yourself, including things like if you’re single or anything like that. It sounds stupid, however I can be pretty sure that at least 90% of you reading this are a member on Facebook and probably update it all the time.
Singing Up
Signing up is pretty easy. Like you would on normal sites, you will need to provide your name, your email address, password, sex and then your birthday. Once you’ve done this and then voilà you have a facebook profile.
Navigation
The site is so easy to navigate it’s just ridiculous. I have only been using it religiously for about 3 or 4 months now, so I haven’t really seen the old layout, but I have to say I really like how they have laid everything out and how easy it is to get from one page to another. It’s a very simplistic website, and can be used by even the biggest technophobes in the world, well, maybe with a little bit of struggle there. It’s really easy to use and really easy to navigate your way around the site.
Profile
Once you have included the important information in the sign up part of facebook, you can choose whether to leave it at that or add more information to your profile. To do this, when you are on your profile click either Info or edit my profile and it will bring you up four different sections which you can fill out to your hearts content.
Basic InformationHere it allows you to update the basic information which every one pretty much wants to know. You have already filled out your name, your birthday and sex, but here it allows you to control how much of your birthday you want to be shown on your profile and if you want your sex to be shown in your profile.
You can also add things like Hometown, and if any of your family members have Facebook then you can add them as well to your profile page. It’ll then ask you your relationship status, which sex you’re interested in and what you’re looking for. A bit nosy I know, but you can choose whether or not to fill this out.
Personal Information
Here it allows you to include all of the things that you like or don’t like. This is includes things like interests, favourite music, tv shows and films and then it gives you the possibility to write an about me.
Contact Information
I haven’t actually filled out any of this information and I don’t think many people do. Here it allows you to write in all of your personal contact information, from address, mobile phone number, IM screen name and neighbourhood. Facebook is not really a site where I would want to include this information. In my opinion, leave this bit blank.
Education and Work
I have quite a bit of this filled out, here you can fill in the schools/colleges/universities that you have attended. With my high school, Facebook already has it on the system so you become a part of that school for that year on their database.
Photos
One of the main reasons I use Facebook is the photographs section. I used to use Bebo back in the day for this, however everyone migrated over to Facebook and in the end this is really what dragged me over to the ‘dark side’.
I think I now at last count have 5 cameras, and that’s not even including the 3 camera phones I have laying about the place. When me and the mates meet up there’s almost always billions of pictures from the encounter, and they almost always now end up on Facebook. Why? So everyone who may be involved with these pictures has access to them.
Any of you people who may rarely use Facebook or who don’t use Facebook, ever heard someone say ‘I’ve tagged you in a photo’? Well this is something that in this day in age has become quite a popular saying now. I receive thousands of emails over a week after meeting up with mates with the words ‘You’ve been tagged in a photo’. What does it mean I hear you ask? Tagging is one of the best features of Facebook, if you have a picture with a lot of people, you can click on a face in the picture and it will ask for their name. You write in their name, and then this picture will be added to their profile and it says that they’re in the picture. You can untag yourself from a picture if you want, it’s not binding and you can do this pretty quickly.
It may not be everyone’s cup of tea, however any pictures I have of my mates etc, will probably end up on Facebook. I think it’s become an obsession for everyone I know now.
News Feed
Where you sign onto Facebook, this is the first thing that you will see. It’s great to read and catch up and see what your friends are up to. The first one in my news feed is a friend of mine saying ‘I’m hoping that me coughing, sneezing and having body aches is not what I think it is’. They write a status, and then you can see what is going on.
You can also see if people have added photos, updated their profile or if they have gained a high score in a game. It’s great to catch up without actually talking to the person as well.
Wall
I think you could pretty much compare the wall to the Public Guestbook on Ciao. ANY one can look at it, but it really is just a way of people talking to each other, things that they don’t mind other people reading really.
It’s pretty much just like sending an email to people, but without going through all the back channels. It’s so easy to post a message on the wall, and it’s a great way of keeping up with your friends, and it’s also a great way of being very nosy as well.
Status
I think the main reason I have seen it be used for over the years is people write a status, telling other people what they are up to. For example, mine at the moment is the following:
“Got a letter from UCAS saying Congrats, this letter confirms your place at ***** starting in September 2009. Looks like I’m into University”
People then read this and leave their own comments underneath it or can choose to just like the status that I have put.
Private Messaging
There are times when you want to have a good moan with a friend or want to talk about something in private, so the wall is not really a good place to air your laundry so you have the private messaging system. It is so easy to use, and one of the main things I like about it is if you are on facebook and don’t have msn on in the background (no emails coming through) then it will show a 1 by the Inbox section of the page, even without you refreshing the page. This is saying that you have a message.
You are unable to send attachments via the private messaging however, you have to have an email account to have Facebook, so you might as well just send the attachment through emails instead, but a mate of mine was complaining about this yesterday.
Groups
I am actually a member of quite a few groups on Facebook, it really is a waste of time, however when you see that your favourrite band or favourite film has a group, it’s very hard not to join. I myself am only a fan of one film (My Sisters Keeper) mainly because that’s all I can be bothered to search for, and am a member of a few bands, only because my mates were members of them first. You can set up your own group, you can really set up any group on Facebook, there are weird and wonderful ones on the site, but to be honest, that is what keeps the site fresh.
Poking
There is really no point to this at all, I have only used it once and keep poking my younger sister, so she keeps getting messages saying that I have poked her. No reason for it at all, but it’s just a bit of fun.
Friends
Probably the main reason for Facebook is to talk to your friends. Unlike Bebo where you can view anyone’s page who doesn’t have it as private, you have to add people to become your friends or confirm that they are your friends. I do prefer this I have to say. I think at the end of my time on bebo I had about 100 friends, however on Facebook, I only have 63 of them on here as well.
I have made sure that I don’t add people just for the sake of it, and have made sure that I at least know the person who has added you.
Unlike Bebo, which was a way of meeting new people really, Facebook is all about keeping up with the friends you already have. I have added quite a few members off this site already, and have joined some communities already for the university I will be attending in September so people have added me off there, but mainly, the main portion of ‘my friends’ are people I went to school/college with.
Adding friends couldn’t be simpler, and safer to be honest. I have to say I do like the fact that people can’t come onto my site and read what I’ve been saying without adding me first.
Chat
For some reason a lot of my mates from my old school never use msn, however when I finally started to use Facebook, I got back in touch with so many of my old friends it was lovely. The main way I got back in touch with them was through the chat section of facebook. I’m not a huge fan of the chat section of facebook, however if it means I get to talk to my friends that I haven’t seen in a while it truly is great. It is a little bit cheap looking and doesn’t work as well as you want it to work, however if you want to catch up with people who don’t have msn then this is a great little feature.
Trivia
I found this quite interesting, so I thought I’d share it with you as well. In 2008, Facebook was valuated and it is roughly valuated between $3-5 billion. For a site which originally was only meant to be for the Harvard University use only, it really has come a long way.
The Good
I think the way Facebook is set up, means it’s not really a site for paedophiles’. I know it’s not something you’d expect to read in a review like this, however I think it’s important for some parents to know that it will be very hard for a paedophile to perve on your child, as long as you tell your child not to add random people. As long as you get your child to only add people who they know, then you really should be fine. It is one of the safest sites out there for young teenagers, so you don’t really have to worry as much as you would if they were on bebo.
The main reason why people use the site is to keep up with friends, either ones you may see often, or even the ones you may have lost contact with down the line. I talk to a lot of people on the site that I barely ever get to see, even my cousins who I haven’t seen in about 5 years now, I’ve suddenly began to start talking to again on Facebook.
You can share photos on the site as well, which is just brilliant. I wish this was around when I was in first and middle school, I’m sure a lot more pictures would have entered my collection if I had access to other people’s pictures of me. Not only are you sharing photos on the site, you are really, backing up your photos as well. You can upload as many pictures as you want, well there is a limit per album, but you are backing up your photos as well here.
You have some brilliant applications on here as well, I didn’t talk about them separately as I’ve only played on two of them, but they are pretty good.
The chat is brilliant, a little rough around the edges but it allows you to talk to people you may not have talked to in a while.
The main advantage of Facebook is the fact it’s free. You can’t beat it if it’s free.
The Bad
Before I was pulled over to the dark side, all of my mates spent a lot of their time on face book at college, it is very distracting, very very distracting. You can have problems with the fact that people will probably upload ALL of the pictures they have taken, including the embarrassing ones of people. This can be quite annoying but if they’re good enough friends, they should take it off for you.
There are not many other bad points about Facebook, it is a great safe site to use and to catch up with friends.
Final Opinion
I think this is one of the best social network sites out there, I know I no longer use any others. It is very easy to use, and it’s safe, which I think is quite important for mothers worried about letting their 13 year olds onto sites like this. It is very hard for paedophiles’ to add them and even get any more information other than their profile picture and name. That’s it.
If you’re not a member of Facebook, then I would recommend at least trying it out. There is a lot of enjoy ability there, and if you are ever bored, jump on Facebook and it’ll take your boredom away.
(C) If any of you brilliant people have facebook and want to add me, then please send me a message and I’m sure I can add you, well as long as I know you :D
Kirsty 2009 (Thanks for reading and rating and even commenting if you do)
You've Been Tagged 
