Making fun of Facebook is almost too easy.

While people obsess over their own and others’ profiles, as fellow Northern Star writer Sean Kelly pointed out this week in his column, they miss out on actual social situations with people.

While I don’t necessarily disagree with that criticism, there is no denying Facebook’s importance, not only in terms of pop culture, but in modern and youth-oriented society.

Like most things in the digital world, Facebook is nothing one should depend on. People met and organized their friends before the Internet, after all.

But there is also the great sense of convenience in being able to contact your friends and to gauge their moods and relationships via a Web site. It has become the measuring stick applied to everyone willing enough to make a page for themselves.

Where would budding musicians be today without Myspace and Facebook events? Where would loners be without living vicariously through other people’s pages?

Where would advertisers be without such a wealth of personal information they can use for target promotions? (That last one is not as good for the non-advertising people.)

Of course, as with most pop-culture touchstones, there is a level of absurdity attached to it. There are the groups that solely exist to have a large number of people join for a shallow reason, or no reason. There are the silly applications.

Recently, I was invited to a wedding via a Facebook event. Similarly, I’ve heard of marriages being broken up via Facebook.

But there have been some great advantages to having Facebook. Anyone who spent high school one month behind the gossip amongst friends (“They’re dating? Since when?”) is now in the loop, thanks to the news feed.

Better still are the honest reunion stories. Recently, I received a message from a woman in France who went to grade school with one of my professors. They hadn’t seen or heard from each other in more than 15 years.

As silly as the Web site gets at times, it’s hard to argue with moments like that. While the naysayers give their criticisms, the site will continue in its gloriously absurd way.

Of course, this opinion won’t be official until it gets posted later on my page …