One of the unique benefits of facebook is that it forces people to be use their real names as opposed to handles required by friendster, myspace, bebo edmontononline and many other networking sites. Funny - how being yourself online has contributed to this phenonemon! For me, Facebook has created a medium for people to reconnect with "marginal" acquaintances and/or "long lost friends" in addition to people they see on a regular basis. Personally, I don't think it's popularity is in replacing or replicating authentic relationships - rather it's a neat way to reestablish contacts with people you never thought you'd see again! Where else can you catch up on years of lost time by simply looking at one page that can tell you where a person works, pictures of what's going on in their current life, reminisce about past adventures (or misadventures) - then drop a note to say "hey"?

It works both ways though - the more put on there, the more you're exposing yourself to "creepers"....

Several weeks ago, when Albert Wu ended up grabbing material off my Facebook page for Sunday worship service, it made me realize that God can use any medium (yes, even Facebook) for His glory!

for me personally, i think facebook is a great tool.

i think that people tend to open up more on facebook and even if its just a "hey, hows it going" wall post, you'll generally get more than a "good, how bout u?" response that we normally see in conversation. may end up talking about things that wouldnt normally come up in casual conversation.

we seem to be less guarded, which could be good or bad, behind a computer screen

Heh heh, then my dad must be "super cool" because he joined Facebook too. He even asked me how to "tag" photos! Ha ha!

Finding 'unhurried' time with others can be difficult in this day -- when life feels like it's running in fastforward, even when you're brain and body isn't. It's true that Facebook puts two computer screens between people but it also allows people to communicate at any convenient time. As the world has become a global village and friends are across time zones, maybe Facebook helps keep those connections. Messages can be more thoughtful.. just because the person writing them has found time to sit and write it -- rather than the day-to-day superficial "how are you? .... I'm fine" type interactions.

How far can we take this cyberspace community? I don't know.

There is something to be said about meeting face to face. There are nuances of human interaction that are lost and cannot be recreated through the computer. At the same time, it may just be one of the many pieces to the puzzle that will hold together and complete the communities we have in the age of ultra-fast and "ultra-faster" computers, wireless everything, planes to nearly every country you can name, and workplaces that exist only in this place we call cyberspace.

Take this string of blogs... are we not communicating? learning? continuing our interactions as a community through this website?
Hmmmm.....