Facebook - Good or Bad?

In class, we discussed how Facebook has affected human relationships in ways such as causing people to have less face to face interaction.

I feel Facebook, whether we like it or not, is now a very big part of our lifestyle, and not just for "tech-savvy" youths, but for people of all ages. Within the span of 4 years, it has grown to have 600 million users. In this period of time, it has caused much controversy, and has radically changed how we view our social lives.

I don't think it would be fair to judge Facebook as a bad influence that people should be banned from, but neither is it perfect. Just like other technology such as forums, email and blogs, Facebook can be made use of to enhance one's lifestyle but it can also be abused and cause much inconvenience to people.

Firstly, one of the advantages I feel Facebook has is that it has made communication between people much more convenient. You could send a message to a person, just like an email, you can chat with them just like on other instant messaging platforms such as MSN, you could write on someone's "wall" for short messages instead of text messaging or voicemail. Furthermore, these features are all in one website.

Facebook also has many features for both work and play. There are a huge number of quizzes and games for entertainment purposes, and there also are many features that help you plan events, organise gatherings and network with colleagues/schoolmates.

However, these features cause some people to decrease their face to face interaction with each other, and their friendship is weakened, rather than improved, which was the original purpose of Facebook.

Some people also abuse these features. People often use Facebook to conduct cyber-bullying, by posting snide comments on other people's posts, and creating pages full of criticism for the victim. Many others also waste a lot of time on Facebook playing a whole range of addictive games available on Facebook, causing them to spend the time they could be using on productive activities on games.

Personally, I do use Facebook quite actively. However, to prevent myself from wasting too much time, I make sure I limit myself to about half an hour's usage a day, and only work-related communication outside of that time. I believe it is fine to use Facebook as a tool for de-stressing and useful communication, but should not take up unnecessary amounts of time or compromise on our interaction with friends in real life.