I disagree. In my opinion, if used right, social networking is the ultimate organization and communication tool. Facebook has gradually evolved to become an excellent organized address book. It keeps track of all my friends' contact information, birthdays, etc. Sure, you can do all that in an Excel spreadsheet, but could you always have the information up to date like Facebook is?
In the same argument, you can also argue instant messengers and Emails are total waste of time. Since god knows how much time employees waste chatting over instant messengers, sending unrelated Emails? Hence, you also need to look at the benefits of how much time Emails and IM saves you. There are always benefits/disadvantage of every tool, it all depends on how you use it.
"Sure, you can do all that in an Excel spreadsheet, but could you always have the information up to date like Facebook is?"
If you spend as much time as you do on facebook doing it, it would not only be up to date, but also include links to google maps, favorite color and last time you had latte together.
My point is if you have to keep track of all your friends' info, it's a very time consuming and manual process, while on facebook, everything is updated by the owner so you don't have to do any work.
Hence my original point of "if used right", it could be a useful communication and organization tool.
I see what you're saying, and it's absolutely true. As you write it all lies in the "if used right" - the problem is that for most people (me included) facebook, linkedin, etc. tend to be timesinks because you just have to check your friends tagwalls, pictures of their pets, etc.
So it's normally not used right, if the definition of right is not spending any time on the site, and just using it as a reference.
I have had several emails so far today saying someones written on my funwall. They've written some spam message asking me to invite lots of other users which will write spam on their funwall...
Facebook is just turning into a spam idiotic universe :/
sure they do. But the default should be "I don't want to get spammed to death".
Also when I do login to my account these days it's just full with a gazillion invites to numerous applications which seem to have their primary function as "Inviting other people".
No. Social networking in general builds social capital. This can increase productivity and general well-being. It can also bring nothing to you or anyone else, just as any other thing you do.
