[fudged]

In my own experience, Facebook is a phonebook of people I am acquaintances with, which offers me a mutual/consensual access into their personal life. It's a communication medium, a social contract, and a social square between other acquaintances. Living in different countries especially (but also with nearby friends), it's an incredibly efficient publication tool for life updates, and an efficient way to stay up-to-date with the lives of many people that you care about (at least a little bit!) and don't have the time to ping all those people for.

It's also a second meeting place. I'll meet someone once or a few times IRL, share an interest or a mutual friend, and connect with them on Facebook. Their profile helps me discover more about them (and vice-versa), and having their updates mixed in with the updates of my other friends lets me learn more about them over time and interact with them if something interesting or important comes up.

To many people, the idea of having nearly one thousand "friends" is baffling and stupid. Yes, it breaks the traditional model of what a friendship actually means, but your interaction in the system enforces the idea of who really matters to you. Because it's a communication platform, you tend to interact the most with the people you care most about.

Has Facebook warped my perspective of privacy? Yes. But I have experienced a lot of value from it, in terms of experiences and interactions that I wouldn't have had if I didn't put out that information about me or provided a medium to interact with 'my life story'.

The default privacy settings are horrifying. But as an individual, there is enough customization so that I can target my content at specific groups of people.