Facebook is a tool that enables people to have a greater sense of community and involvement with one another. Often geographically disparate friends can still retain a foothold in one another’s lives.
For most web designers, especially a few years ago, owning an iPhone was more or less de rigeur in the same way that a Blackberry is for crack dealers and bankers.
At school, wearing a pair of Adidas-like ‘one stripe too many’ trainers in PE would lead to mockery. No-one was suggesting that the shoes were of a lesser quality, simply that they said you were too poor or socially unaware to have the ‘proper’ ones.
Certain objects or features provide a talking point, a sense of identity, a way to differentiate and create a starting point for dialogue. This could be a Mohican, an audiophile sound system or a folly that you have built on your estate.