Facebook

Since you are reading this post, you obviously have the Internet. In which case, you MUST be familiar with that phenomenon known as Facebook. There has been a lot of hoopla about it in the news lately, from lawsuits over the source code, to the use of it in the workplace.
I have to admit that I am a fan of the site. One of my nieces sent me an invite to join as her "friend", and I did it just for fun. Since then, I have added a number of friends to my list, including cousins that I don't get to check in with that often. Distance can be a bit of a problem in my family. I have also discovered old friends that I went to school with. That is the whole point of a networking site.
Then there are the startling number of applications that you can put on your profile. Between the fun wall and "booze mail", there is no shortage of fun things to get each other's attention.
I see on the news where students are now using facebook as a means of finding roommates for college. Think about it for a moment, we most often find our roomies through friends of friends anyway. Facebook just allows you to expand the search, and saves the time of phoning around. There is also the advantage that a profile tells you a lot about the character of a potential housemate. If there are more than six tattoos visible on his/her photo, you might want to reconsider that person. More than half of the photos in the profile taken in bars? Maybe not somebody you want to live with.
I think the rules that apply to your personal information have to be used on Facebook. Make sure only the people you want to can see your stuff. Don't put up pictures that you don't want coming back to haunt you.
There was a case where students were suspended for posting comments about their teacher on the site. In my opinion, that was a little harsh. As long as the comments were not posted from a school computer, it is not a school issue. The teacher in question should have informed police and the Internet service provider. Let the proper authorities deal with any complaints stemming from the Internet. The fact that the target was a teacher is irrelevant.
As with most things to do with the computer age, Facebook has a lot of advantages and drawbacks. It will probably take a while to sort it all out. Projections are that almost the entire computing world will be on Facebook in a couple of years. Maybe the world is getting smaller after all.