Facebook is by far the most dominant use of communication when it comes to recreation for students as well as staff. The central idea behind Facebook is like many others on the web, it allows you to create your own homepage so to speak, in order to represent yourself to everybody. Facebook allows you to connect with anyone you currently know or anyone within a network of people you know, or even people you haven’t seen in years. As of April 10th, 2008, a search using the title Reinhardt 2009 will net you 467 results, a substantially large portion of that particular class.
With Facebook, you can display detailed or general information about yourself, such as your favorite movies, TV shows, music, books, hobbies, and interests. It also gives you the option to display contact information like your name and address and past school history and employment information. One could deem it a resume of your life, or even a small window into your everyday life. The feature that ads to the idea of the window into your life, is the option to display pictures. So not only can someone read and understand more about you, but they can also view pictures of what it is that defines you. Many of the pictures found on Facebook are of family, friends, hobbies, pastimes, favorite memories, special events, school, work, and the list goes on. With so many features to display yourself, and so many people using the site, it truly is a network that allows anyone to connect with anyone.
Facebook is an excellent source of communication and that statement is especially true if you want to stay in contact with people that you don’t see on a daily basis. While the site is a great network to stay in touch with your friends that you see regularly now, it is even more valuable in staying connected with those people that you don’t see consistently. There is always the option to interact with those that are far away by using the wall or messaging, you can talk and chat at your own leisure as well as have insight into the other person’s life. You just don’t have that type of contact with someone for example that is 1000 miles away. While the use of phones and email is respectable, they don’t allow viewing and reading everything that someone wants to share like Facebook does.
As far as immediate contact, it has the same disadvantages that email does. The person you are contacting would have to have web access which limits the ability to reach someone in a timely manner. That is why Facebook is considered more of a recreational type of communication; I don’t see too many people considering Facebook as the 1st option if an urgent message needed to be delivered. Nonetheless, the ability to communicate as well the amount of information and type of information you can share makes it one of the best sources available.
