Why I’m still on Facebook

We’ve been hearing a lot of bad stuff about Facebook lately. I’ve been giving Facebook a lot of grief myself, lately, too. I hate that I’m their product not their customer, I hate what it does to my sanity (it’s too easy to become reliant on it for social affirmation), and I hate what it can do to my ability to focus (brb, checking FB…).

In this post, though, I want to address the other side of an internal debate: why I am still on Facebook. The primary reason is that, put simply, I derive utility from the service. Lately, the cost–benefit analysis has been coming down on the side of keeping my account open. (The other reason, of course, is that I need to have access to Facebook professionally.)

Being relatively new to a community, Facebook plays three important roles: phatic, event awareness, and ad-hoc organizational.

Many of the people I’ve been meeting, I’ve met through events in the Jewish community. That means I’m affiliating myself with a community that I’ll only see once a week, and that is at least forty-five minutes away by train. The phatic function of Facebook posts can be a way to establish stronger connections — or at the very least help ensure I exist more than just once a week.

Chicago has a rather dynamic community; there’s almost always some sort of service or dinner or event to attend on Friday nights. The way to find out about these events, though, is almost exclusively through Facebook. Finding out about a group or organization and Liking it is, if not the only way, certainly the most efficient way to stay in the loop about goings-on. Plus, many request RSVPs so they can plan appropriately. Ad-hoc organizing (e.g. “Anyone want to go to…”) happens less often, but it does happen, usually in the realm of finding out about shows to attend.

And of course, as one whose academic interests span the user interfaces, social behavior, and broader implications of systems like Facebook, I do have something of a professional obligation to at least keep tabs on what’s happening in the world of Facebook. Or at least that’s what I tell myself. ;)

Personally, though, I eagerly await the day I feel comfortable enough to close my Facebook account.