In the video of “The Benefits of Face book Friends,”  Nicole B. Ellison, associate professor of telecommunication, information studies and media at Michigan State University, talks about the advantages that face book friends can have on someone.  She talks about the different relationships that people have on face book with the friends they have added. She mentions about social capital which are the ways in which one can have advantages from being friends with the different social groups that one has a connection with. Different kinds of benefits can be taken, for example if you are in need of a job. You post on face book that you are looking for a job, then someone that knows about a job contacts you and helps you. This also depends on how much the other person cares to help. Also, you may have a question ad post it and then people are able to answer you, therefore giving you a variety of results that are helpful to you. Another benefit from this is that the people that answer may not necessarily be the friend on your list of friends. If you post something on a friend’s wall, that person’s friends see it and from there they are able to talk to you. You do no need to have anything in common; all that connects each other is the mutual friend. You may never even meet the person but you end up having a great conversation and helping you in different ways that were necessary for you to have.

Everyone with a face book page has friends that they have no idea who they are. This makes it hard for them to help when we post something that we need, because since we never talk to each other we cannot see the other’s updates unless we individually go to their page. There are many people who add everyone they meet. For example someone goes to a party and meets new people, and then they go on face book and add those new friends, people you may never see again. Although they may never see us again, they are there to in some way support us. For example if I’m having a bad day, I can share it on face book and receive replies of people who wish for me to feel better and may tell me something that actually does make me feel better.

From all those friends that are added, the smallest percentage of friends are in reality our actual friends. For our benefit, it is important to comment on other people’s things. We often care more about those who are our real friends, like about things they put or to know when their birthday is to wish write something to them. The majority of people reply requests, comments and messages. In order to create a good social capital with face book, it is a good idea to talk to people when you have a chance, even to say hi. The more you talk to them, the better it is to have good connections on social networks because it helps on working together and can help with things outside of face book like at school or at work.

The presentation by Nicole Ellison was interesting to me, because I had not seen these benefits that she mentions about the friend that we have on face book. It is true; we have a lot of friends that are just our face book friends and our actual friend is the lowest number of friends we have. It is helpful when posting something because you get to see everyone else’s opinions on thing and if you are in need of something, all this helps you. It seems that now face book is the only way of communication with others. Like she mentions, it does have its benefits that helps us in working together with the certain social groups that we are part of and helping us outside of face book in our individual lives.