[Shank]

I reconnected with a long-lost childhood friend that I barely remembered any detail other than her name via Facebook. It proved its worth to me that day, but the caveat is that I had to reach her mom, and that's because she actually stopped using it long prior. After we started talking (and eventually dating), she deleted her entire account / profile, which rendered her unfindable again. The main problem she had was that she wasn't benefiting from it, and they were sharing so much of her personal information that she didn't feel comfortable with it.

It's an interesting juxtaposition, because had she not had a profile, I wouldn't have found her. But by that same measure, she found it invasive enough to delete her account.

I think Facebook had a time and place for when connecting people was an innocent venture with largely altruistic goals. But like so many things, times have changed and the calculus for "maybe one day a special person will find me on Facebook" vs "creepily processing all personal information" has shifted. Most young people aren't on Facebook. The door has closed, and I'm not sure if it'll reopen any time soon.