Why Do People Use Facebook?

Facebook is a social networking site which enables you to communicate with friends, either by chatting in real time, by exchanging messages or even by creating updates on your personal profile. It is also possible to locate people from your past by checking out Facebook pages associated with your old high school, university or place of work. You can check out different members' profiles and add them as a friend, which they can then accept or decline. You can create and join interest groups and 'like' various pages, so that you may even be able to connect with people you don't actually know in real life.

For most people, though, Facebook is the easiest way to stay in touch with friends that they may see on a regular basis or perhaps do not see as often as they would like to. Facebook only works because there are so many members. There wouldn't be much point joining if you were the only member, as you need to have other people who you can add as friends and stay in contact with. Facebook first became popular amongst college and university students, who used it as a way to interact with friends, though this particular social networking site is now used by people of all different generations.

It seems to be the ease with which you are able to share information with others that has made it so appealing. You can let people know what is going on in your life and read what is going on in everyone else's life. You don't have to send an individual email to all of your friends, as everyone can see for themselves that you're engaged or that you've just had a baby. You can upload pictures in a few clicks and look at pictures that other people have taken. You can disclose or hide whatever information you want on Facebook, which might seem appealing if you want everyone to come away with a particular impression of you.

Therein lies one of the problems with Facebook. People can tell you what they want, just as you can tell everyone else what you want to. The people you add as friends may not actually be friends, but you add them out of habit and because you want to have a proper look through their profile! A number of privacy issues have been raised in relation to Facebook and there have also been concerns about young people using Facebook and being exploited by adults.

However, there are still plenty of people signed up to Facebook and who continue to use the service. Even if Facebook were to disappear completely, which seems unlikely, it already has its place in history, as although not everyone uses Facebook, the chances are virtually everyone has heard of it because of the impact it has had.