I use facebook for social networking. Social as in socializing.
That is, I meet people in a social setting, such as a house party, a the choir I sing in, people that visit my roommate, or even potentially just random encounters in a public place. Then, I establish contact via facebook for future social activity.
In many cases, these people are already friends with someone in my friend list. This means that tracking them down is very easy. (It is also easy for them to track me down, if they so desire). I look them up on facebook, friend them, and the next time I am interested in inviting them to something they are easy to reach.
That's what networking is, by your own definition: interacting with people in your fields of interest. And that's what facebook is good at. The list of dormant collections that is a typical friend list is still an excellent tool for establishing new contact, even if you don't technically 'meet' for the first time online.
The purpose of social activity is not research, or content sharing. The purpose of social activity is to connect with other human beings and share life, because this makes us happy.
However, that's not a universal approach to socialization. For example, I don't view my online socializing as a direct extension of my offline socializing. They have different roles.
I don't need to follow my sister on facebook, I just meet up with her to talk. I really don't need to see what statuses by strangers my long-time friends "liked", I'd much rather just meet up with them in some interesting place for a vacation. And if I am connected to them online, I have no use for a notice that a friend is DJing at such and such club on the other side of the earth in 5 days, but I'd like to share music we are working on or books we are reading, so I connect with them on platforms designed to share those things.
Online socializing also provides the opportunity to be exposed the ideas, work and output of people who I couldn't meet any other way. As a result, when I'm online I seek out strangers who are working in domains that interest me, read what they say, check out their work, discuss things with them and collaborate on creating things.
So, in my situation, I relate to the author's approach: I seek out content. I strongly prefer discussion-centric platforms like forums and the only social networks I use heavily are either domain-specific, like goodreads or linkedin, or content-centric, like github, soundcloud, vimeo and even, to some degree at least, twitter. Friendster, Myspace and Facebook have never been interesting to me.
It's just a different perspective. Different people simply have different interests and differing socialization patterns. Personally, I find these differences fascinating.
That is, I meet people in a social setting, such as a house party, a the choir I sing in, people that visit my roommate, or even potentially just random encounters in a public place. Then, I establish contact via facebook for future social activity.
In many cases, these people are already friends with someone in my friend list. This means that tracking them down is very easy. (It is also easy for them to track me down, if they so desire). I look them up on facebook, friend them, and the next time I am interested in inviting them to something they are easy to reach.
That's what networking is, by your own definition: interacting with people in your fields of interest. And that's what facebook is good at. The list of dormant collections that is a typical friend list is still an excellent tool for establishing new contact, even if you don't technically 'meet' for the first time online.
The purpose of social activity is not research, or content sharing. The purpose of social activity is to connect with other human beings and share life, because this makes us happy.