Dear LPG,

I just want to say a few words in defence of Facebook. 

Even if people have no idea of how it works or what it is, most know that it is perhaps the original social media website.  Perhaps a really simple way of putting it is that if emailing someone on the internet is like sending a personal letter to them, using Facebook is a way of being part of an internet club where it is easier to let all your friends know about what is going on in your life by adding the details to an online notice board. 

I know that the site has quite a bad press at the moment, but I feel that, like most things in this world it has its good points and its bad.  While it is mentioned quite a lot on television programmes like the Jeremy Kyle show, where information found there is often reported and accepted as proof of theft, infidelity and many other negative events, it can be a good thing. 

I have a half-sister who I knew about and who I used to be able to phone quite regularly back in the 1980s.  At the time I worked as a telephone operator and although calls abroad were really expensive, one of the perks of my job was that I could call her.  We got to know each other quite well and I learned then that she is not much of a letter writer among other things.  Even though I had only seen photographs of her back then we got to know each other quite well.  We talked about our families and children and what was going on in our lives.  Then things suddenly changed.  When British Telecom stopped being the only telephone service available, I left my job and telephoning the USA was still very expensive.  My sister and I lost touch; she had moved and my letters were returned.  I thought I had lost contact for ever.  

My son introduced me to Facebook and set me up with an internet account but I found another job and had little time to really explore it.  While all this was going on I contacted a few of the agencies that help people who have lost touch and I also found out about some of the American shows that find lost people and wrote letters there but there was no joy.

Then one day some eight years later my son told me that he had been contacted via Facebook by someone who said that they knew me and it turned out to be my sister’s daughter.  She searched for me on Facebook and, because I did not really use my account could not get a response from her messages to me.   So she did the next best thing and contacted my son, and since then we have holidayed with each other and use this, the telephone and other computer programmes to keep in touch.

So I have to conclude that Facebook is as good or as bad as any other computer programme, or indeed many other aspects of life. 

LS, Lewisham.

LPG has found a little information about Facebook and how one finds people using this website, although we agree with LS who advises that finding someone who knows a little more about how to use the website would be the most helpful way forward here

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