It helps you keep in touch with people you otherwise wouldn't. It's also fun to find things about your "friends" that you otherwise wouldn't ask them about (like what your next door neighbor's political and religious views are).
Just now, for example, I learned that one of my cousins moved to Indianapolis. I don't know what I'm going to do with that information, but I was interested to know it. I have rad friends in Minneapolis who've used Facebook to do organizing (I know because I periodically get mass Facebook messages from them about stuff they're planning). Not sure how successful they've been with it, though.
> man, what a wealth of information these people have about what people are
> supposedly interested in and not. my dog! imagine what you can do with all
> that networking, poking, raising money, sending hugs and hamburgers, book
> listing, music listing ... holeee phuchketty!
>
> i need to get a job at a joint like this so i can find out how they're data
> mining. fascinating.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/17/style/17facebook.html
"But it is Facebook's role as a petri dish for the social sciences — sociology, psychology and political science — that particularly excites some scholars, because the site lets them examine how people, especially young people, are connected to one another, something few data sets offer, the scholars say.
"Social scientists at Indiana, Northwestern, Pennsylvania State, Tufts, the University of Texas and other institutions are mining Facebook to test traditional theories in their fields about relationships, identity, self-esteem, popularity, collective action, race and political engagement."
> but other than that, what do all you facebookers actually do with it all?
That's about it.
-WD