This is great timing, I actually almost deleted my facebook account last week. Then I realized, I liked browsing the pictures of my friends every once in awhile, and they might like looking at mine so I'll just keep it around for at least awhile longer.

I only blog what I want to blog about, I use it as a journal. If someone else reads it, great. If someone comments that's even better but I refuse to blog for anyone but myself.

Thank you all for your comments. It's great to hear different perspectives. As I said, everyone has their own thoughts on the value of social networking, and you only get a lot out of it if you're willing to put a lot into it as well. For insight from other bloggers, check out the comments on the original post.

I can certainly relate to JRandom42. When you don't see any value in something for yourself, you get kind of annoyed when everyone else gushes over it. I joined the Facebook bandwagon a few months ago. But after the initial rush of adding a few dozen 'friends', I realized I wasn't really involved in their lives, and pared back my list to only 3 people. So I'm probably in the middle of the road when it comes to my opinion about social networking sites.

Fact is that Facebook is a tool. And like any tool, it amplifies the personality of the person that wields it (religion and politics are other familiar examples). If you are a shallow person who constantly screams "look at me!" then you'll flood Facebook with posts about yourself. If you are someone who has a large group of friends and genuinely care for them, then you'll use Facebook to keep in touch. And if you have few friends or family to keep in touch with, then you'll use Facebook rarely (like myself).

My wife works a few nights and stayed at home with our baby a while. She got hooked on Facebook during that time period and it helps her keep in touch with her friends because she can't hang out with them as much in the past. When she works nights as a nurse, she and other friends who are working nights use Facebook to pass the time when there are no patients. In that way Facebook, has been really a great tool for her.

I started blogging to work on my writing as a motivator to do some research on industry related articles. It's been great for developing my writing and connecting with other bloggers. Also as my wife tells me, I'm very important so that's why I blog because I have a lot of important things to day.

I am slowly starting to understand the value of Twitter. Initially, I considered my Facebook update status is as the equivalent of Twitter since I send short messages to my friends and get messages about them. But Twitter has that viral aspect which can be used to spread the messaage. Right now, I don't think that I am important enough now to twitter but I am sure that I will be soon.