Another Facebook Post

"Facebook's mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected. Millions of people use Facebook everyday to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet."

This is the mission statement of Alexa's #2 most visited website, Facebook. Their goal: to connect people, and make money while doing it. Facebook, however, has not made money until very recently. Their game plan has seemingly been to grow to a gargantuan website, and then gain enough ground and popularity that their ad space is worth thousands. The problem with Facebook: people are too "busy looking at their friends that they don't even look at the ad space". The solution, which Facebook instilled within the past year, is individualized advertisements. Facebook's interactive ad agency lead, David Blum, states that, "It's about saying, 'We are going to take this information because you've acknowledged that you have an interest in X, Y and Z.'" (1) With this new model of advertisement, Facebook is slowly but surely making money.

Facebook prides itself on being an independent company (not like a Youtube, owned by Google), which made it very hard at first to make money. Advertising is their key, but there are other revenue-producing tactics. First off, ANYONE can advertise on Facebook, whether it be Windows or your friend wanting to promote his group. Birthday gifts and virtual property are little one dollar gimmicks that, for some odd reason, people actually spend money on. "The fact that Facebook is now making money independently means not only is it less reliant on benevolent cash, but also that it can continue to slay rivals, including Twitter, which isn’t making money yet, or MySpace, which is increasingly irrelevant." (2) Facebook should be here to stay.

(1) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118783296519606151.html?mod=e-commerce_primary_hs#articleTabs%3Darticle

(2) http://www.electricpig.co.uk/2009/09/16/facebook-making-money-at-last/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/sep/16/facebook-money

History is written by the victors

The old saying goes "history is written by the victors." The human lexicon is dynamic and always changing. I think that history and recorded knowledge are similar to a languages lexicon, "facts" changed with time, fashion and social change. Wikipedia is the perfect vehicle for this set of knowledge since it is written, edited, patrolled and updated by the people.

I really like Geoff Nunberg's conclusion at the end of his "Fresh Air" Commentary "It's only when you actually try to implement that view of collective knowledge that you realize how fond and delusional it is. When you deposit this multitude of strangers in a single place, you shouldn't be surprised when you come back and find nothing but a jumble of footprints in the mud. That's actually a fair picture of what human knowledge has always been, but it was never so evident before."

I don't see this as a bad thing. For certain questions I think that Wikipedia is often the best resource. Important and controversial information is very well monitored. I think that is it better to have a more democratic approach, leave it it open to the population to edit, than to have it maintained by a few people all employed by the same company.

If the whole sum of human knowledge is a messy "jumble of footprints in the mud" anyway, what better way to organize it than with a whole bunch of people with muddy feet?

Wisdom of Crowds...

The topic of the Wisdom of Crowds actually came up at a rather interesting time I'm currently reading a book by Steven Johnson entitled "The Invention of Air". In it he covers the Life of Joseph Presley an Inventor and Patriot who had a strong scientific relationship with Benjamin Franklin. More importantly he covers what he calls his coffee shop theory in which he explains that the rapid scientific and technological advancements of the last two hundred years is mainly due to a ramped free exchange of thought that originated in coffee shops in the beginning of the 1800's. I find it interesting to view the growth between what Johnson calls the beginning of rapid thought exchange in coffee shops where educated individuals where drawn together by the popular social hangout and compare that to today where we have taken the idea of group thought development to a brand new level. From nightly builds to Wikipedia the way that a group can generate content that is not only factual but more extensive often times than one person could ever produce by themselves amazes me.

In terms of the NPR Interview in which he speaks of both the strengths and weakness of the wikipedia and its role in our society, I believe that wikipedia has been becoming a more reliable source for primary information, but I do agree with "Jeff Numberg" in regards to Wikipedias limitations. I founds his thoughts on how the collective process could never truly produce a constant view point that criticism requires to be fascinating...

Wikipedia vs. Britannica: Who's Smarter??

When wikipedia first was created it seemed to be a godsend for students and a horrible atrocity for teachers/professors. Students seemed to love the concept of finding information for any source in a matter of seconds. While professors thought of the credibility of the actual site which seemed to not exist in their minds. The credibility of wikipedia has always seemed to hinder the site since it began but if someone does enough research they will find that people can source each bit of information accurately. This is where the battle between wikipedia and britannica truly starts.

Britannica has been the source for accurate information way before the internet was created. When I was younger I even remember going to the full collection from A-Z and actually researching using books. This of course is what will lead to the downfall of britannica in the near future. Having to literally search several pages to find the information then having a limited number of words for description is something that will never hinder wikipedia. Another point is the actual pricing of the physical books which can become pretty expensive.

Now I'm not completely agreeing that wikipedia is all powerful and has no problems. There is always the sense that someone could be giving false information or that the sources could be completely outdated. But the internet is always constantly fluctuating and wikipedia is able to change over the course of seconds. Britannica needs to either create I cheaper or even a free way of distributing it's information or wikipedia (and other online sources) will eventually take it's place.

wisdom of crowds

From what I gather over the internet, open source materials are the next big thing. I am referring to a knowledge base that is built from public contributions. The pros and cons of building an entire system based on public knowledge are obvious. You can have great suggestions however you must first filter through the dumb ones.

Two heads think better than one. To some degree that statement is true. I think a group can come up with more creative ideas than just one person. But what if you have a stupid group?

I think that social networks and any company actually, can take advantage of public knowledge and opinion if they do it right. They can open the dialogue to the public and filter through the ideas to find good ones. After all, the public is their customer and you always want to please your customer. For example, Microsoft launched Windows 7 BETA to get feedback before releasing the final version. From what I hear (I'm a mac) it is paying off. You can even see that they incorporated that into their TV marketing with the actors saying "Windows 7 was my idea". When it comes to improving a product using public knowledge to improve it is a smart thing to do. However, when it comes to providing concrete knowledge (wikipedia) I'm not sure how smart that really is.

I feel that whenever I read something in Wikipedia I always have to question it's validity. Depending on the topic, I will do further research just to confirm that what I read on Wikipedia is true. I think it's nice to have the public contribute but I'm still uncomfortable when it comes to accepting it as fact since anyone can say anything.

2 Heads are better then...Millions?

Wikipedia was introduced to me as the bane of my teacher's lives. I was told never to use Wikipedia as a source, that it was littered with lies and misinformation. Now I'm not arguing that this wasn't true at the time, but it's existence has evolved into a much more credible source. With the increased user population and flow to Wikipedia has allowed it to transform itself into a self-perpetuated system with it's community sifting through information, validating authentic information and keeping lies at bay.

I still believe that Encyclopedia Britannica is the more credible source between the two, but I do feel that within 10 years, Wikipedia (or perhaps some equivalent we haven't foreseen) will take the lead. As the internet continues to be accessed by more and more people, those willing to provide professional and accurate information for free increases as well. A platform that takes advantage of this online community, such as Wikipedia, is setting itself up to just be a system that will be perceived as "the only possible solution" and it will seem that these old, single sourced databases are no longer competitive.

The major draw back to Britannica besides the aforementioned, I feel, is the need to register and be charged for a service that is provided for free elsewhere. Whether that source is less-credible or not becomes irrelevant when it is provided for free against a competitor with a service fee.

Information Cascade

I found the talk that James Surowieki gave really interesting. What caught my full attention was this idea of diversity when speaking about the wisdom of crowds. It seems to make sense that the more diverse a group of people are, the greater the collection of knowledge will be to pull from. People from different economic, social, and financial backgrounds will most likely look at information from multiple perspectives. I guess what is challenging is figuring out what is credible. Surowieki mentions the idea of an information cascade, and this point can be illustrated through the first article about digg.com. Simply to me, it's the idea that the masses are always correct. If everyone thinks a restaurant or particular song or movie are quality, then I should as well. Information cascades are what drive sites like twitter and digg. Members promote their links and idea's and the more popular they are, the more people will most likely check them out.

Online networking communities can be a great resource. Beyond the social aspect of posting pictures and spying on people from the past, the potential to share meaningful information is available. LinkedIn has taken advantage of this idea. People have developed groups based on their particular industry and interests and can discuss topics posted by their members. I personally belong to a few industry groups and have found some quality links and information this way. What I am guilty of is not having a diverse spectrum of groups that I associate with. It makes sense that the broader your knowledge and interest, the greater your repertoire will be on a specific subject.

Wikipedia or Britannic

According to several studies, Wikipedia nowadays is about as good a source of accurate information as Britannica, Wikipedia service and its community are built around a self-policing and self-cleaning nature that is supposed to ensure its articles are accurate.

in response to the phenomenal success of Wikipedia, The Encyclopedia Britannica start to invite members of the public to write articles for its online edition. Wikipedia, with it’s 13 million articles has forced Microsoft to shut down Encarta.

Encyclopedia Britannica did not think that an open source product like Wikipedia would significantly challenge the credibility of its brand.

I think over the next few years we will see the continued demise of Britannica and more upgrading and expanding in Wikipedia.

http://news.cnet.com/Study-Wikipedia-as-accurate-as-Britannica/2100-1038_3-5997332.html

A Better Encyclopedia

The analog construct of research by cumbersome books with limited availability is being rendered obsolete. As corny as it sounds, a "hypermedia encyclopedia" or inevitably, "hyperpedia" is about to replace them. The old model is neither affordable, environmentally responsible or perhaps most importantly, convenient. The new model is all those things plus up-to date, in-depth and portable.

The most important question remains however, is a hyperpedia edited by just about anyone accurate? James Surowieki, author of Wisdom of Crowds sees with diverse group of contributors the intelligence of the group has often been proven to be greater than it's most intelligent contributor. Individual intelligence is second to diversity. A like-minded group even if it's made up of intelligent contributors will echo their own point-of-view and have a low probability of identifying errors in judgement or reasoning new outcomes. The traditional encyclopedia is likely to be limited to a small pedantic group by comparison to Wikipedia's army of diverse contributors. Wikipedia's open nature provides a more complete and universal point of view. Wikipedia may sometimes be inaccurate, however it time it will improve and certainly has the potential to be a repository of information far superior to an encyclopedia.

Caution is advised however in blind faith with what you find on Wikipedia. John Seigenthaler, former aide to Robert Kennedy wrote in an op-ed piece for USA Today, "For four months, Wikipedia depicted me as a suspected assassin." He was referring to a Wikipedia article that alleged Seigenthaler was involved in John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy's murder. (1) The error was eventually corrected. A serious gaffe that warns to verify research done on Wikipedia elsewhere.

1. Growing pains for Wikipedia, from CNET

Retrieved September 9, 2009, from CNET website:

http://news.cnet.com/Growing-pains-for-Wikipedia/2100-1025_3-5981119.html

Wikipedia or Britannica?

I believe that because of the ever changing nature of Wikipedia and its ability to update any bit of information at any time, it will be more accurate than the Encyclopedia Britannica in 10 years. This is not to say that every piece of information will be 100 percent accurate, but it will be more accurate than Britannica. The Encyclopedia Britannica is accurate, but it would take longer to change any updated piece of information, whereas in Wikipedia there is always someone checking on certain articles and updating any discrepancies. Although if you think about it, any information source is going to be flawed in some way or another. There will never be 100 percent accuracy 100 percent of the time.
As for Digg, I know what it is, but I do not use the feature at all. I don't really care to Digg anything. It's not that I don't like the idea, because it is a good idea, I just don't find it useful for me when I'm communicating.

What's Popular Is Good

The "information cascade" and the collective wisdom of crowds which James Surowieki talks about are a phenomenon which have fascinated me for a long time. Starting an information cascade has been, in fact, the main goal of advertisers as long as they've existed. Once a lot of people use something, it can be very difficult to get them to use something else that performs the same function, even if it's better at that function than the thing they commonly use. The story of Microsoft is perhaps the ultimate example of this.

Certain people are often snobby about things that are popular. Personally, I find books and music a lot less appealing when it seems like everyone knows about them. But the fact is, almost everything that gets popular is exceptional in some obvious way. If you spend a lot of time reading books that never really sold or music by bands that never really caught on, you'll find much of it is indeed fairly mediocre, if not actually bad. In probably 80% of such cases, the crowds were right. Of course, there are overlooked gems, excellent pieces which, had they come out at the right time or been promoted better or the creators hadn't died in a car crash, could've entered the pantheon of big successes. And you see, in these cases, how much dumb luck can matter as much as anything. But they're a lot rarer than you'd think. Most of the good stuff does get identified.

All of which is to say, I do have a great deal of faith in the wisdom of crowds; I think we see it demonstrated all the time. Not just on the internet, though obviously, the internet has put it to work in a way I'm sure no media has before. Which is why everyone's trying to get things to go viral--pure interest counts for an awful lot.

As for Encyclopedia Britannica, is it still even around? I don't think I've seen any editions printed after, like, 1995. It's pretty clear who won that tussle, and it wasn't just Britannica that got its hide tanned--anyone remember Encarta on CD-ROM? Anyhow, it's not like encyclopedias are some kind of ultimate source of information. I spent a significant part of my childhood pouring over our set of World Books, and I often found the articles pretty unsatisfying. You still need to dig a little deeper if you really want to know about something. Heck, I still go to the library. Laugh if you want to, but I'm not the only one.

Encyclopedias, though, are clearly obsolete. I don't know where Wikipedia will be in 10 years, but it's safe to say that the days of people buying 15-volume sets are gone. As to whether books generally will be gone in 2019...well, personally, I doubt it. I wouldn't be surprised if ebooks ended up filling very specific niches while traditional books remain better for others. Kids books, for instance. Would you let your baby chew on your Kindle? I didn't think so.

Wikipedia or Encyclopedia

I believe both will have problems in ten years. Encyclopedia will be the thing of the past. With the push to go "Green", paper books will disappear. Publication companies will stop updating and printing copies. They will ultimately become antiques. This major change will be the result of internet. In the future, everyone will search and receive information on the web via Wikipedia or something like it.

Today, the push to go wireless is everywhere. While more and more people head the the internet for information. They don't realizes that the information found might be wrong. Critics say most of the information on Wiki is incorrect due to the open process system. In ten years, Wikipedia will be out of control. One will not be able to determine what is true or false. Unless in the future, Wikipedia invest the time to confirm that every entry is correct. If not, I can see this site crashing and burning or becoming a joke.




http://news.ecoustics.com/bbs/messages/10381/596321.html

Wise Crowds

Internet postings are created through several different formulas. There is the traditional news report, such as a New York Times Article. There are blog postings, which are usually opinion-based, and are not meant to be necessarily "correct". Then there are open-source sites like Wikipedia and Digg, which are infamously known for being widely sourced, but not entirely reliable. Does the fact that Wikipedia's content is editable by anyone and everyone make it a less valid source than Encyclopedia Britannica, even though Wikipedia is strictly monitored and edited by a group of editors?

James Surowieki brings up a lot of good points within his speech titled "Independent Individuals and Wise Crowds". One argument that I think specifically relates to the Wikipedia/Britannica argument is a test of group thinking. A study was constructed in which four groups were told to solve some sort of problem in the fastest and most efficient way possible. The four groups were categorized as follows: dumb, mediocre, smart, and random. Of course, the smart group was overall more successful than the dumb group in doing whatever task it was at hand, but the random group almost always outperformed the smart group. Why was this? It was the group dynamic, the same idea that makes Wikipedia possible. The information may not come from one specialist, but it comes from all kinds of sources with different levels of knowledge and experience of the subject to create one cumulative outcome. The group is almost always smarter than the smartest person in the group.

Wikipedia, according to Alexa.com, is the second most trafficked website in the US. There must be a reason why it is such a hugely popular site. In other words, there must be some level of validity to most of the information on the site. If Wikipedia were not looked at by administrators, I am almost positive that it would have turned into a sort of Urban Dictionary or Encyclopedia Dramatica by now. The perks that Wikipedia has that Encyclopedia Britannica cannot ever grasp is the idea of the now. For example, whenever Michael Jackson died Wikipedia was updated with the news almost immediately. In conclusion, I must agree with the previous posting: In a matter of ten year, I do not know what Wikipedia will be, but it will surely out-live Encyclopedia Britannica.

http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail468.html#

On Emergent Intelligence...or Submergent Stupidity

We see group wisdom in all sorts of situations...but we also see group stupidity. The ironic thing, as Surowieki describes in his talk, is that it appears the more independent and silent the individuals in the group, the smarter the crowd. Like bees, each individual is stupid, programmed with just enough intelligence to do what they have to do, and the sum of all the small, mindless (sometime errant) moves is a complex of intelligent activity that gets a hive built. The wrong moves are averaged out and the right ones are reinforced. If the members of the group could attempt to communicate and actively try to solve a problem, they would get nowhere, because no individual is equipped to solve the problem on their own... I think this perfectly describes our Congress! They should all just shut up and vote.

On the internet, I think, it is similar. Digg, for instance, largely does give accurate information in the same way that bees build an accurate hive. If one person appreciates a news story, they presumably think it is interesting and accurate so they digg it. They may be wrong or they may be right about its accuracy, but other people will make up their own minds and digg or bury it. As the numbers add up, it becomes increasingly more likely that the sum judgment will be a correct one. The sum of a group of low-intelligence decisions is usually a very wise decision.

The problem with this is that, as Surowieki states, we don't only base our decisions on our own information, but we instinctively imitate others. So if a hundred people digg a story, its much more likely we will believe it is valuable before we even read it. In fact, its likely we will only see the stories that have been dugg; there are thousands of great stories out there that, it just so happens, were not posted. Our perspective is skewed, hence our decision is skewed, hence the group judgment will most likely be skewed. In the case of Digg, this is not such a big deal, since it is really a popularity engine, not a correctness engine (a fake story can still be popular, right?). The content being voted on is already published, and (presumably) verified news material.

Wikipedia is a different story, since articles are themselves written by the public it really is a correctness engine. Someone could write an entirely fictional entry and publish it on Wikipedia, and if it is esoteric enough (say, on the wonders of denatured alcohol) it could conceivable exist for a long time. The good thing is, as I see it, most pranksters are out for impact, so they create a fake story on popular topic (like the death of a Senator) that everyone will see, and in ten minutes the deception is revealed. Even my postulated fake denatured alcohol story would eventually be discovered and corrected by a real chemist. In this way, Wikipedia is more policed and reviewed than it may seem at first, and with time the contents do become more and more accurate. Will it be more accurate than a published encyclopedia? Not necessarily, but that's not the point. Britannica may have been painstakingly researched, but by the time the information gets out it may have changed. Wikipedia is a living and growing entity, and evolving at orders of magnitude faster than any encyclopedia can. In ten years it won't matter which is more accurate, I think Britannica will be all but dead.

Facebook...

My life in online social networks didn't begin until I was coming to this college for the first time 4 years ago and unfortunately it only lasted about a year or so until I lost interest / became uncomfortable with the whole idea of having your life laid out for everyone. Looking back now I actually recall the when I decided that logging on was no longer worth my time. It was when the "news feed" was originally introduced into the program around 2006 or so. I remember looking at that and immediately not liking it. When I first began with the community, if you wanted to know something about an individual you had to take the time to actually visit their page and some what interact with them. With the introduction of the "news feed" all of you and your "friends" immediately began broadcasting all changes that we're made on your page, into this public forum of your peers. I understand that after some time they did implement privacy controls to allow you decide what content you wanted to put on the feed but at that point I was personally feeling that focus of the site had shifted into being mainly gossip.

For the class I decide to take the dive and re open Facebook for the first time in the last couple of years and I have to admit I was rather impressed in the way it reverted into such a powerful communication tool. It really has grown allot and to be honest I was kinda overwhelmed by the amount of options you have available to you as compared to the last time I evaluated it.

The article I read for the class was entitled "The Brave New World of Digital Intimacy" it discussed how people react to changing means of social networking and it even addressed some of the issues I had with the "News Feed" when it first came out. In the article they go into how in this new digital age people are going have to be "streched to become comfortable with things that they aren't yet comfortable with." And how "A lot of this is just social norms catching up with what technology is capable of.” So it follows true to form, that as it become more acceptable to have your life made public in a digital forum that facebook would slowly take over to the point today where it is accepting a million new users a day from all over the world.

The Skeptics Are Right!

Saw this this morning and couldn't resist. I guess the skeptics are right--we're all gonna die.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/10/19/social.networking.crimes/index.html

Torn

I belong to two "networking sites" at the moment - Twitter and LinkedIn. I always liked the idea of keeping in touch with old friends, daily friends, and any one else out there over these sites and in the past I have belonged to Friendster, Myspace, and Facebook. One of the main reasons I joined them was to promote music and upcoming events and shows. I think for self promotion these sites are a great avenue to explore. I think the positives out weigh the negatives for most people using these sites, but for me I think I'm over it. Other than using the sites for promotion, I can't get into sharing my personal life with the world. Maybe I'm paranoid. Ha.

I feel that LinkedIn is a good tool, especially for me as a freelance designer, for business promotions and prospects. If I see a job out there, you can pretty much find the hiring manager on linkedin and send them your material. Twitter is cool because it bridges gaps between myself and other musicians. I get a lot of free music and find out about cool collaborations that certain acts are doing that I like. I feel like you can tailor that experience to suit your needs... It's almost like a news feed of your interests.

I read and skimmed a few articles on Facebook and social networking sites and the consensus is that they are good. They are a positive way to stay in touch with people and make being online that much more enjoyable. Maybe I'll get over it one day and join, but for now I think I'll stay off the popular air waves of facebook.

Interesting article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/magazine/15wwln-lede-t.html

Social Networks: Are We Farther Apart?

I was never a member of a social network until a went to college and joined Facebook. I did post on forums and made comments on blogs but never actually made a friends list and communicated with people constantly. There initially was talking face to face with someone and having an actual conversation. Then we went to phones where we seemed further apart but could hear people's actual voices. Eventually people decided they could be more expressive and efficient by sending text messages and e-mails. This is how the social networks we know today started.

When I was in high school I always thought that Myspace would be pointless to join. I actually went over my friends houses and would call them if I needed to talk. Then Facebook came around and people told me to join it to get to know who my "friends" are. I found the design a lot more simple then Myspace and the simplicity of the site helped me join it easily. I searched for people I know and received messages from old friends. This system then started to transform into people getting addicted to having the most friends, stalkers appearing everywhere, and soon I really didn't care if someone broke up with their boyfriend or lost a cellphone number.

Now I'm not saying social networks are horrible and need to be gone. But the Internet world always creates fades and soon people take it to far. They eventually get adopted into real life and people lose the sense of calling someone to go to a party and this is what is upsetting to me. This is why people get kinda of amazed that I never update my page or somehow I don't know about certain information. This transferring of information will keep on going into the future though. People will receive notices of someones personal life by just seeing an update on a social network. The general idea of Facebook and Myspace is to late people communicate and have a constant relationship with friends but it soon evolved into a very weird and obsessive fetish. This is just all my opinion though and don't get me started on Twitter.

Facebook Happiness Index

For the past few years, Facebook has been tracking the happiness of its user through their status updates. Facebook creates this Gross National Happiness Index by this by tracking the number of positive and negative words. "Happy words include, naturally, “happy,” “yay” and “awesome”; sad words include “sad,” “doubt” and “tragic,”" according to a recent article by the New York Times. This data shows that people are happier on Thanksgiving, Christmas and the Easter. It also shows that the death of a celebrity like Micheal Jackson or Heath Ledger makes people sad. It also proves what people have long suspected, people are happier on Fridays than they are on Mondays.

While it seems a little far fetched, it is based on principals that are generally accepted by social psychologists. People's word choice does reflect their mood, especially when they are updating their status, which is meant to broadcast what people are doing or how they feel.

While I do enjoy reading about what my friends are doing on Facebook and I do think it is an incredible tool for connecting with people I have lost contact with, I try to limit my use of it. I also make an effort to stop and thing about the impact of what it will have before I post or update. I guess Facebook does reflect my mood, when I post things on it, however, the times when I the happiest I don't think about checking and updating Facebook. I think that it can become a medium of digital bragging, it can also be a great way to share what you are up to and to keep up with friends and family.

Facebooking

Facebooking started out as a great idea. It started out that you had to be registered to a college or at least 18 years of age. Then the myspacers came over and corrupted the facebook world forever. Myspace was a childrens spot to show off your creativity in different layouts, music and other random things you could do to personalize your profile. Facebook was the clean version and designed to stay in touch with your friends from home when your at college. Facebook now is all about updating your status whether your at the park or going to the bathroom, people know. I admit, I use facebook on a daily basis and check it at least 3 times a day.

Social networks have always been used and always will be. Eventually Facebook might be beat out by another one but social networking can be a great tool. It can be used by firms looking for their next employee or vice versa. Without social networking, yes there would be more human contact, but I probably wouldn't talk to any of my high school friends nor past co-workers or anybody. Facebook allows me to keep in touch and stay in touch with friends. Do I need to tell the world I'm dating someone? No, not really but I choose to. Nobody really knows why they update their status every second but they do. Its a part of the social networking world and thats how its going to remain.