“If You Can’t Say It, Facebook It!”

By LYBUNNARITH HONG

Internet has no doubt become one of the most important innovations when it comes to the quest of knowledge, entertainment, culture and communications. People across the globe from children to grandparents can interact with each other easily these days. It is because of many websites created to help people to socially establish their network online. Not surprisingly, Facebook is one of the world’s most popular social networks. The popularity of Facebook has been increasing so much that soon it will reach 1 billion members. However, the question about whether Facebook is worth using or wasting our valuable time has been discussed in many countries.

Mark Zuckerberg first introduced Facebook in 2004 and since then Facebook gradually became the top social networking site in the web making its owner the youngest ever billionaire in the history. Most people who know how to use the computer and internet has a Facebook account. With its 900+ million active users, Facebook has helped a lot of people in many ways. 

Facebook is a tool of communication. With Facebook, you can get in touch easily with your friends, colleagues, relatives and family. Facebook is best for searching for old buddies, especially when a friend goes far away to another place, and often don’t get a chance to communicate with them. Facebook gives us the opportunity to communicate with new people from different social status and countries. It is a great opportunity to learn new cultures which you may find fascinating.

Another great advantage of Facebook is that it can help your business. Since it is mostly open to the world (online network), you can connect with other people who might be interested in products or services you advertised on Facebook and possibly making a significant increase in your business success. Moreover, using a Facebook fan page may increase your brand value and social media presence. Facebook helps you find new clients and good revenues if you know how to use the site properly.

Facebook is a suitable place in which we can share our feelings and thoughts on what’s happening around in our daily lives. We can also get feedbacks or comments from our friends to cheer us up if we face any dilemmas which we can’t solve by ourselves. Students can use Facebook for group study by creating a group for their study group.

On the other hand, Facebook also has some drawbacks which should be noticed. Nowadays, it seems that more and more people spend their time in front of the computer screens, particularly using Facebook, which according to doctors, can be very unhealthy for them. Obviously, Facebook can be very addictive for some people who are too enthusiastic. Thus, it wastes their precious time that can be used to do something more beneficial like playing sports, reading books or spending time with their family instead of sitting there hours and hours chatting and commenting with their friends. Above all, Facebook has a very bad influence on students’ exam results. A research carried out by an expert in psychology said that when students focus too much on Facebook, they tend to get lower scores in exams, thereby losing their motivation to study.

Another serious problem is having a fake Facebook profile. Consider how easy it is to create a fake profile; it can have a very bad impact on a victim’s life (person who has been faked). It may not sound serious for most Facebook users, but there are people who committed suicide because someone with a fake Facebook profile account has abused them using their own personal information against them. Most importantly, there are plenty of groups or fan pages which have been created in order to criticize other religion, personalities and nations. Unless Facebook administrators take actions against them, I suppose Facebook will lose its popularity soon due to these kinds of ridiculous activities.

Facebook can be a powerful tool of business and communication if it is used well. We can see that it has a lot of advantages and disadvantages. Hence, in order to save our valuable time, we should use it in moderation.