Editorial: Facebook - The book everyone's reading

Facebook - ever wondered what all the fuss is about?
Some Facebook facts:

• There are more than half a billion active users of Facebook.
• Half of them log on to Facebook in any given day.
• The average user has 130 Facebook friends.
• People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook.
• The average user is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events.

Earlier this year, it was reported there were nearly 2 million active Facebook users in New Zealand, with 90 per cent of the population aged 15-39 actively using the site.

Those numbers have likely increased by now.

What does it all mean?

It means we've seen in just a few short years a fundamental change in the nature of society - in the way we interact, make friends, vent our frustrations, plan our lives, make decisions and more.

For many, it's changed the way they talk to others. People who don't even know their next-door neighbours are baring their souls to virtual strangers across the nation and across the world.

It's changed the way journalists do their job too - in that it's given us another tool to talk to you, and for you to talk to us, and each other through us. Check out the Facebook Views in this Opinion section - we know which issues have lit a fire under our readers because they're the ones that spark the biggest discussions.

And, as you can see in

this story

, Facebook also proved a useful tool for one worried Rotorua family who used it to track down a teenager who ran away from home.

The world is getting smaller and the tentacles of social media seem to be able to reach anywhere.

The question is: do you think that's a good or a bad thing?

Source: http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics