Facebook is now an essential unifying force in many people’s social lives — it helps friends arrange events, wish each other “happy birthday,” solidify communities and social bonds, and share recent memories with images.

All of that has been always possible by other, less convenient means, but Facebook helps us do one thing that’s unique to our time: Get daily updates on the lives of friends all over the world, in different walks of life.

In a way, that’s what the service originally was. Its name and college origins conjure images of a yearbook, intended not to keep up on what’s new but to act as a record of past relationships, associations and accomplishments. Facebook hasn’t forgotten that, so it provides tools for reconnecting with friends from your past — past schools, past jobs and even past e-mail exchanges.

Here’s a list of ways to find long lost friends on Facebook.

While only 7% of Americans are using it, the Twitter population is still 17 million people, which is roughly equivalent to the combined populations of Connecticut, Oregon, Kentucky, Kansas, and Oklahoma. And while substantially smaller than the Facebook brigade, the Twitter crew is tuned in to brands like nowhere else on the social WEb.

This statistic is my favorite. Follow the ‘via’ link to read the other 6…

Put away your preconceived notions of what Facebook is all about.

For a long while, the consensus was that Facebook was the place where high school and university students go online to hangout, hook up, post drunken photos of themselves and act mischievous until the harsh realities of a cold world break their spirits into suits and boring 9-to-5 jobs that suddenly have them driving minivans, listening to James Taylor and reading columns like this (a fate worse than death itself).

Please click the ‘via’ link to read the rest of Mitch’s article…