Is It Too Late to Join the Facebook Party?

Yesterday I had a nice visit with a new friend. At some point in the conversation, she made a reference to Facebook.

"Oh, I'm not on Facebook" I mentioned (perhaps, forgive me, with the tiniest bit of smugness) I'm not sure why I needed to inform her of this, but I'm noticing that it is a somewhat irritating habit I've got myself into, where I feel the need to tell everyone that I didn't do it, I never gave in, I am not involved.

"Oh really, why?" she asked, with genuine interest.

Now normally when this conversation comes up, I find that people react in one of two ways: they either shrug their shoulders in an "each to his own" or "oh, she's one of those" type of way, or they say something like "lucky you" or "smart choice" or something along those lines, as if to commend me.

The difference with this particular conversation yesterday afternoon, was that someone was genuinely interested in knowing why I had made the decision to not join. Which made me think about it more as I waffled a few lame answers.

I think that it's become easier for me to just say "oh it's not for me" in a detestably lofty sort of way, and not give it much more consideration. Occasionally I think - am I missing out on something? - but I often find that it's at these times I run into conversations with people who tell me that no, I'm not really missing out, it's not all that great, and anyway, who wants to be stalked by all the people that they once went to primary school with?

My initial reluctance to join was based on the fact that I was very distrustful of putting anything of myself on the internet. I still breathe a sigh of relief that it wasn't around in the days that I was going to university, because lord knows there would be far too many embarrassing photos of myself floating around (as it happens, there may still be a few, but not being on Facebook, I wouldn't know). At the beginning, I didn't know many people that had joined - it started out with a couple of work colleagues who confessed that they were completely obsessed by it. I found that frightening too.

Today, mostly everyone I know is on it, my husband, good friends from University (who will have some of those embarrassing photos, but hopefully not scanners), even my Mum.

Over the past couple of years, I've become a bit more comfortable with being online. I have been on Twitter for nearly two years, and I interact with people on the internet as a blogger, and I find both of these things enjoyable.

When I occasionally peer over my husbands shoulder, into the realm of Facebook I see an intriguing world of updates, invitations to events, and discussions popping up over a shared link. All of these things appeal to me.

I've heard a lot of negative things about Facebook, and how it can be a pain, a time-hog, a source of friction, but far fewer positive things. It seems to be more commonly regarded as a "guilty pleasure". So it was interesting to hear the other side of the coin yesterday. I liked that my friend considered Facebook as a way to spread positive thinking, to provoke interesting discussions, to connect with people. Those are things that I enjoy about being on twitter and to some extent by being a blogger too.

So it really got me thinking, do I really have a good reason not to be on Facebook anymore?