Facebook

NEW YORK -- Facebook is trading up 8 percent Friday, as investors seek to put a dollar value on the company that turned online social networking into a global cultural phenomenon.

Half of Americans think Facebook is a passing fad, according to the results of a new Associated Press-CNBC poll. And, in the run-up to the social network's initial public offering of stock, half of Americans also say the social network's expected asking price is too high.

Our highly social species has been behaving strangely of late, and this has been noted in a flurry of recent hand-wringing articles wondering whether technology is changing our nature. The cover of the Atlantic asks whether Facebook is making us lonely, and the New York Times bemoans "The Flight From Conversation."

The authors observe what many of us have experienced: Friends invite us to get together only to spend the time texting other friends or tweeting. Everywhere, people are ignoring those in their physical vicinity so they can hold court with acquaintances farther away.

One unlikely source of insight into this bizarre situation comes from our cousins the monkeys. In his new book "Games Primates Play," evolutionary biologist Dario Maestripieri makes the case that people are using technology to do what comes naturally to the human species -- not to converse but to compete for status.

ATLANTA -- An organ donation group says more than 100,000 people used a new Facebook feature the first day to declare they are donors.

CHICAGO -- A postcard mailed from Chicago in 1958 has finally reached its intended recipient, but not without a little help from Facebook.

Facebook has never been known for simple privacy controls. But to be fair, you can put a ton of data into your profile and specify who can see each item if you're willing to do the work. However, giving users granular control still isn't enough.

Facebook last month issued a revamped Statement of Rights and Responsibilities and opened a comment period, which was extended through April 27. Recently, the company invited more than 2,000 users to comment on the statement -- selected because they had "liked" Facebook's governance page and represent some of the social media site's most vocal critics.