"You just post on internet forums instead. The difference is ... ?"

Well...if you can't figure that out...sorry.

mmhmm. the typical "What about email/what about telephone" responses.

Picking up the telephone and speaking to everyone might be fine for some people, but for others, Facebook currently offers a convenient, hassle free way of keeping in touch with folk that does not involve too much time and effort. It has not replaced the telephone as a way of keeping in touch with people: it helps me stay in touch with a larger number of people who I would probably have otherwise lost regular contact with.

In case I didn't make it clear, we are not talking about immediate family here: I speak to them on the telephone or via Skype. But for some distant relatives and old friends who I left behind when I moved halfway across the country, who I get on with but don't have the time or the energy to call (and/or the other way round) Facebook is a great, convenient tool.

It is more convenient than email as you have an address book already compiled for you, and it offers specific tools such as real time chat, the ability to share photos with groups of people easily, and to organise and tag photos in a useful way that, IFAIK, no email software can.

I wonder where this snobbery over choice of communication tool comes from, and if it existed when telephones first became widespread ("You *telephone* them? Don't they have a letter box?"... Like the telephone, Facebook is a tool. A telephone can betray your privacy easily if someone overhears you saying the wrong thing, a letter can betray your privacy if someone else opens it and Facebook can do the same if you post the wrong thing to the wrong audience.