Of Facebook's Pros and Cons

CEBU, Philippines - I was passionately talking to my friend sitting in front of her laptop, and found her yapping about facebooking, rather than listening. From the four-year old kid in kindergarten to a 70 year-old retiree downtown, Facebook has tremendously become the “it” of social networking, becoming the common denominator to everyone.

Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc founded by Marc Zuckerberg. As of July 2011, Facebook has more than 750 million active users, the Philippines being on the top ten amongst the most number of users all over the globe. Active users may create a personal profile, add or remove other users as friends, exchange messages, leave an automatic notification when updating their profiles.And by merely logging in with your email IDs, you can automatically create a profile page. And hurrah! You are already into the world of Facebook.

Facebook has it all, be it raising social issues or as an advertising tool. It really has a broader reach than any other medium. Nonetheless, after I spoke with my friend, who was intermittently listening to me while facebooking, I realized that despite its variety of gains, Facebook has also its share of drawbacks.

Below are my list of the pros and cons of FB.

Pros

• Facebook is simple, easy to use and orderly;

• Facebook is a public application; quite appealing to the younger ones. FB makes it easy for them to share their lives, whether educational, social, personal or professional in a fun and learning environment;

• Facebook lets you decide whatever you want to share with whomever you want, which makes it possible for you to keep your privacy intact;

• Facebook is also accessible through cellphones, allowing every active user to update his whereabouts from practically anywhere;

• Facebook is an effective tool to search for a long lost friend by simply using the search option. And poof! You are reconnected;

• Facebook provides an ample opportunity to advertise for business, from clothing line, shoes, jewelry and even houses by practically categorizing groups per target audience. Plus, the cost of advertising is lower than the usual advertising methods, providing a broader and more extensive visibility;

• Facebook also paves a way to promoting and discussing social issues on any topic of paramount importance, molding public opinion and

• Facebook can either upload or download photos without any complication, allowing an active user to access photographs through their cellphones.

Cons

• Facebook would wane someone’s physical attention and adjacency on things as he may rely on virtual access to recreation and information;

• Facebook could be less enjoyable and boring at times, especially when you read ‘spoiler’ friends lurking over their misfortunes and miseries. It does not only lose your good morning vibration dew, it also eradicates your gut feeling of having an entirely enjoyable day;

• The dependence on this technological communication tool undesirably affects the social communication skills of the young ones, making them aloof and socially-challenged;

• FB is an addiction contributing a wide-range of procrastination. It could impede a student’s educational obligations or an employees output at his workplace. (Educational institutes and organizations must consider banningthe use of Facebook in their premises.);

• There is always that modicum of chance of cyber stalking in FB, leaving your personal details to be put up in wrong thumbs;

• FB is spoiling the value of relationships, mostly long distance relationships. This is because the relationship is built and maintained virtually and lacks the emotional and physical involvement of a pure relationship. Chances are, sudden break-ups or violent severance of relationship would ensue; and

• FB active users can easily post incriminating comments about their co-active user leaving no space for responsible social-networking usage. Worst is, abusing every one’s exercise of right to expression unmindful of its limitation.

Surely, Uncle Ben would not always be there to remind us that with great power comes great responsibility. My friend must understand what she is trying to give out otherwise, circumstances might get ugly and her co-user wouldmistakeheras someone else.

She must remember that while she increases her communication and connection between her friends in the online community, she also increases her risk of procrastination, and losing a physical companion. Worst, she might be punished for what she puts on her profile and would be blamed for intentionally putting there for fun.

Physical touch of friendship will always be more lethal than a couple of online messaging.