Facebook is a game whose goal is to collect "friends".

Someone wrote a good description of Facebook on a message board and I thought I'd build on their idea. Basically, they said Facebook was a large, multi-player game; the goal of which is to collect "friends".

I agree and would add that the goal is actually to increase your "prestige" level by "getting in people's face". You do this in two ways:

1) You collect "friends" - this is the game's currency.

2) You update your profile, post photos, add features - these actions remind people of your existence.

When you do both of these things, you increase your prestige by "getting more in people's faces". That's the goal of Facebook. It's to compel a community of people to care about you.

Most of the work we put into the internet (creating a blog, updating a web page) results in little or no feedback. (For example, I average approximately 0 comments per posting on this blog.) But if I were to do this on Facebook, I'd score huge prestige points.

So Facebook is a way to get people to care about you. The game works because it's a form of symbiosis. You "win" through "cooperation" with the other gamers (the other people on Facebook). It's in their interest to add you as a friend because you also add them as a friend. They increase their prestige and you increase yours.

Similarly, this is the same reason why we should wish other people in the world get rich and make a lot of money. When other people get richer, we get richer too because they buy more of our stuff.

Facebook is a giant game of mutual co-operation. The more you give, the more you get back in return.