Confession...

I have to confess, in the last week or so I have given in to the ‘friend’ request emails I’ve been receiving in my hotmail account. I have been lured into the world of Facebook. For the last two weeks I’ve been receiving friend requests to join Facebook from people I haven’t seen for 3-5 years. Earlier this week I established an account and can’t believe how easy it is to find people and friends.

I tried to set up a MySpace account earlier this year and found it so time consuming – to find friends, to design a fancy background, curser and establish a visually appealing space. I gave up and haven’t visited the page since I made the account.

Facebook I found different. As I have described in past posts, I’m not the most technologically savvy person in the world and Facebook was more ‘user friendly’ towards the likes of me.

Facebook is a social networking website that allows people to communicate with their friends and exchange information. Launched on February 4 2004, Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg, a former member of the Harvard Class of 2006. Initially Facebook’s membership was restricted to students of Harvard College. It eventually expanded to include individuals with a university email address, and since September 2006 it now extends its membership to anyone holding any email account.

I have not become addicted to the social networking site and can’t see my usage becoming obsessive. It has merely allowed me to catch up and communicate with friends from my past. In past posts I have been known to criticise socially networking sites, such as these, but my criticism has recently moved to the individuals that let these technological networks become the better of them. Again, I conclude is Facebook and MySpace the blame for an individual’s constant use of such spaces – does our technological progress create or merely enable distracting and, at times, disturbing behavior.