Facebook and Twitter are what you make of them. If you don't use them, you are going to hear about the most extreme uses, good or bad. I have a Twitter account, but I don't use it anymore. Twitter is a bit more connectivity than I need.

Facebook is highly customizable, you can set it up to have as much or as little privacy as you want. I have some friends who post about once every four months, and they don't allow anybody but close friends to post on their wall. I have other friends who have 2,000+ friends, post everyday, and allow anybody to post on their wall...to each, his own.

Facebook can be highly valuable in an emergency for several reasons:

-You can send a text message to Facebook when cell service isn't quite good enough to keep a phone call connected. You just need a burst of connectivity to send a Facebook message.

-In my experience, Facebook is more reliable than cell, text or email at getting to a large group of people in a speedy fashion. At all times, it seems like at least some of my friends are on Facebook. If I sent out an emergency alert, I'm sure at least one of my friends would pick it up and run with it right away. I don't have the same confidence with text or email.

-Facebook has a "News Feed". You could literally go to your News Feed and see the most recent post from one of your friends. You could send a message specifically to that friend who just posted because they're likely to be online at that moment. You can't do this with cell, text or email.

-Contacting someone on Facebook means the person is on the Internet and is capable of performing Internet searches (e.g., Google) immediately. This is not necessarily the case with cell, text or email.

DON'T GET ME WRONG. Sometimes cell, text or email is better, just like sometimes a ham radio is better. Each technology has its own advantages. Overall, rationalizing your way out of using a particular technology is dumb. At least try something out and see for yourself.