Facebook may have a million negatives but for many families FB has replaced email and other forms of communication. Remember, many families have members in Europe, China, California, Texas...Costa Rica...or college so FB is an excellent tool to share what happened (new baby born for example) in real time. They are other methods no doubt, but FB seems perfect for that.

I have an account to do just that, keep track of what's happening with my extended family and friends I lost touch with ages ago. A lot of the pictures, comments, likes and so on are designed to show off but so what? It mirrors real life ;)