No

by Ashley Smith

Created on: October 23, 2009

Facebook has not replaced the telephone, neither will it do for sometime to come. It does allow you to communicate and send pictures, also to communicate with numerous people in one go but live one to one communication is limited. You can talk vis the Facebook chat function but this is unreliable and doesn't call someone to your presence like a ringing phone. To speak live you have to be both on-line, on a reliable connection and to get anywhere near the simplicity of a phone a rapid typer. You can communicate slowly if you wish but this eats in to the time you spend communicating. A phone call of a few seconds will be able to convey information that would take many minutes via Facebook.

Its true that you can leave information for people to find in Facebook and via other social network site and you can also post adverts. You could therefore mass market to people quicker then cold calling phone calls but this is of minimal use. Phone calls can be aimed towards certain people and certain areas where Facebook posts are thrown out to the world who then choose to read or not. If you choose to use targeted emails or spam emails again you have no guarantee of people looking at them, saying that many will ignore calls from people selling or will put the phone down when they recognise the callers intentions.

For general communication between friends and families Facebook has its advantages such as the easy sharing of pictures and film clips, it also allows mass sharing and updating for free. This is its main usage and what it was actually intended for but this remains a limited advantage. It doesn't mean communication for those who struggle to use computers, for those with no Internet connection, for those with poor eyesight or for those who simply aren't linked to Facebook. A phone call is personal, your voice can share emotions, you can hear emotion in the calls recipients voice and you can immediately react to not only what you hear but how he information is given to you.

If you want to use the computer and Facebook to communicate then purchase an Internet phone system such as skype. The Internet and Facebook does have is advantages but it will not replace the telephone unless it can become more personnel. Fcaebook and the internet has almost certainly affected the sending of letters by post but the phone is a way off yet.

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