This. For a lot of people FB etc are treated as 'all or nothing' but it doesn't have to be like that. Just like alcohol or whatever drug you prefer doesn't have

This. For a lot of people FB etc are treated as 'all or nothing' but it doesn't have to be like that. Just like alcohol or whatever drug you prefer doesn't have to mean getting wasted every single day. Couple of times a year is fun as well, if not more fun. Whatever the author claims about social media ('corrosion of civic life and cultural shallowness', for one) to me sounds like thinking too much like any other standard social media target but with some clicking around and reflection you can change it to work pretty well for you (at least on FB). Sure I do get some crap but most has been filtered out after a while and it now works extremely well for me: mainly for events/band info (most forums I used to frequent for e.g. the goa/squat scene only have a fraction of all parties these days but most is on FB now), news for some particular stuff I care about, group chat for setting up meetings etc. Used this way it also doesn't hurt my carreer any more than anything else on the internet: before FB I spent time frequenting many different forums and news sites and chatting on IRC during work hours. Part of that just got swapped for something else.