What are the advantages of Facebook? As an English editor, do I really need to register a Facebook account?

[Bob B]

Facebook is a social networking site- it's a way for people to share information, plan events, form groups with similar interests, and so forth.

It's quite possible to get by without a facebook account, and many people have never used it and do just fine. That said, as more and more people are using it more often, it can become difficult for someone people to not have it. For instance, many people I know (myself included), got it because all their friends were using it to coordinate their social events and without it, they were increasingly left out of the loop. So there is that. And it is convenient for that purpose as well- if you have 20+ people planning a get-together, and want to know when everyone's available, you can just set up an event page to discuss the best time and place, and everyone can see it and post when they're free. That's much easier than trying to cross-reference with everyone.

It does also have some practical uses as well. For instance, my college class used to have our own internal facebook group, where we'd discuss the course, share resources or websites that were useful, and so forth. It is also a good way to share information fast- once you post it, everyone can see it and reply.

The main downside is privacy- once something is posted to facebook, it's often hard to get rid of. And facebook has a rather shady reputation in respect to hoarding peoples' data for advertising. For this reason, I don't connect it with my other accounts (email etc), don't post any contact details on my facebook profile, and don't post anything else on facebook unless I'm comfortable that anyone might see it. I've never had a problem. Some people have, although mainly because they were stupid about what they posted.