If you're taking a picture that has a specific subject you want the focus to be on (like a portrait), then making sure that subject is properly exposed is more important than worrying about blown highlights (although Niels may take issue) or underexposed shadows.
Deciding when you should use exposure compensation is based on your subject and the background. In an extreme example, when someone is in front of a lot of snow, then the camera's metering might underexpose the subject's face, because it's trying to properly expose the entire image when the thing you care most about is small relative to everything else. Many point and shoot cameras actually have face recognition designed to meter a photo based on the faces for this very reason.
Something else to keep in mind is that the LCD screen on your camera tends to boost the brightness for readability in sunlight and in doing so, even underexposed images may look good on screen.
So, if you're shooting something that is darker relative to everything else in the frame, then you can adjust the exposure compensation in increments. Most cameras do it in 0.3 or 0.7 steps. I tend to do +0.7 at most, because anything more than that and it's likely that you really will be blowing highlights on more than you want to in the frame. A value of +1.0 would mean the camera is compensating for a full f-stop over what it was metering for the image. For a full definition of f-stops, you can check out Wikipedia.
Here's an example scenario where I used +0.7 EV, because I was taking a picture of Roxy on the light carpet. Because she's so dark, I often lose detail in her face, and by increasing the exposure compensation helps ensure more contrast and detail in her fur.
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