Well, after years of resisting, I've concluded that Facebook is good. I've noticed that Facebook brings another level of granularity to the intensity of connec

Well, after years of resisting, I've concluded that Facebook is good. I've noticed that Facebook brings another level of granularity to the intensity of connections to people you used to know, or went to school/whatever with. There are people you just wouldn't call up because you don't know them too well but you still know them. You could send an instant message or email them, if you had something to say. Then there are people I would hesitate to bother with an instant message. An email would probably go since it's asynchronous and doesn't disrupt the other person that much. Then there are people with which I would have a certain barrier to even sending email to. For example, my high school "mates": I would hesitate to email many of them because I don't know them too well and I didn't really talk much with them in high school either. But Facebook solves this. The barrier to ask someone to be your friend is negligible. The barrier to comment on someone's status is even lower than that! Note that this doesn't mean hatching superficial relationships. With some people I still have nothing much to talk about. But I've noticed that when I can, via Facebook, adjust to the "correct" intimacy level with someone I barely talked with. If it's a couple of status comments a year, I'll learn new things about them. With some of these people I've begun to swap comments regularly. With some of them I've sent emails or even chatted. I could say I wish I had known how to get to know some of these people back then; I think I now have that chance. This would not have happened without Facebook because there was no such low-intensity connection before, except for maybe randomly bumping into someone on the street.