So these days I primarily use FB for the following:
- Organizing my monthly “Friendship Lunches” to which I invite 80-odd friends and acquaintances from the area to local restaurants to hang out and meet new people while enjoying tasty food. Something like Meetup or EventBrite could work for that, but a significant upside to FB is that it smooths the “get enough contact info to invite someone to this stuff” barrier around new acquaintances that it’s very easy to transition from meeting someone new to inviting them to the lunches to becoming closer with them in time (not entirely through the lunches, but they help).
- Discussing the state of RPGs and our group in general with the local Raleigh Tabletop RPGs gang via their Group page, as well as recruiting for the games and events I run as a part of that (and staying informed about others’ games and events). While there’s certainly been some interpersonal drama here and there amongst the membership, the FB page is very pleasant and filled with good and rich conversations.
- Organizing other events in general - e.g., birthday parties, trips to local concerts/protest marches/cultural events, boardgame days with friends, movie nights, etc. These activities tend to be with closer friends, so email might have sufficed, but some, like the concert/march/event invites, are also just blast-message opportunities for me to evangelize something local I’m passionate about to my friendquaintance circle and hopefully bring more folks into it.
- Keeping up with friends near and far in a generalized sense. This one is also uniquely satisfied by FB at the moment because of its ubiquity. Two people I strive to keep in regular touch with don’t use FB; everyone else I do, does. Some, not much, but they’re on there and available via wall posts and tags and Messenger. I’ve developed very disparate friend groups between my high school gang in TN, my college group in MA, my camp pals from KY, and my newest friends in NC, plus the few family members I find tolerable and random other friends from elsewhere (including right here on Qt3!). While I mgiht have ways of getting in touch with all of these folks somehow, someway (or at least could have found them when we were in close touch–e.g., exchanging emails or telling each other when we updated phone #s), nowadays, having everyone in one social network, accessible simultaneously, is a huge boon for me, and reduces “bookkeeping” noticeably.
Oh, plus sometimes posting pictures of my wildly-out-of-my-league gf and I having dinner or the foods that I cook to show off my amazing life on my wall, but that’s a given, right? ;-)