While my winter break was mostly dedicated to spending time with family, I tried to sneak in some social time for myself by occasionally going on Facebook.
The site is like the best friend we never had. We hear about everything from inside scoops on people to the most happening social events in town; it is the ultimate means of socialization and communication. So just to see what my friends on Facebook were up to during the break, one day I went on the news feed and found out that one of my friends had a warning on his status, saying Facebook will shut down by March and that everyone should save their pictures.
This development wasn’t quite clear to me. Facebook is the most popular social network — millions of people from all around the world use it almost everyday. Every means of socialization and communication is available on this website within a couple of clicks. The founders of this famous social network have understood human curiosity so well that they know how to lure all kinds of customers to the site with different types of attractions.
So, why would the creators of this popular website walk away from such a booming business? After doing further research, my friend told me that he had found a false article and none of what he had written was true.
By the time my friend did a follow-up on his sources, I had already started relating the shutting down of Facebook to the 2012 armageddon theory — lives all around the globe would turn upside down.
I wondered what would happen to the millions of Facebook users who use it for a good amount of time each day to socialize and communicate.
Specifically, I wondered what I would do to keep in touch with my friends back home and my relatives back in Nepal. I would have to start using Live Messenger to chat with my relatives, AIM to chat with my friends, Yahoo! to write e-mails and send pictures, and texting to see what my friends in college were up to on the weekends.
Users who rely on Facebook to consolidate all these means of communication would soon have to prepare themselves for a major inconvenience.
But the convenience of Facebook comes with a price, and the price we pay to know the intricate details of our friends’ lives should be no secret.
When television first came around, people were so fascinated by the entertainment it provided they slowly started to become introverts. Facebook is even worse than television. It has sucked all the users into the cyberworld with no possible escape.
A version of this article appeared in the Jan 20 issue of the Collegiate Times.
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I started using facebook and abandoned myspace back in 2006 when myspace was the real deal. Somewhere around 2008, when facebook made all these radical changes to their interface and control settings, I started to hate it. Then it grew more popular than myspace ever was. Honestly I'm getting tired of this facebook fad. I hope it dies. Yeah facebook is useful for looking up old friends and staying in touch and that's all I use it for.
Today every laptop in class is on it, people are addicted to it, all everyone talks about is what they saw about so and so on facebook.
I hate the new facebook and miss the old one pre-2007. Now facebook is bloated with apps, and I get tons of junk messages and now privacy is becoming a problem.
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Thou shalt not use facebook.
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I really don't see what such the hype is about, I miss the days back in the 90's and early 2000's when I'd actually meet friends in person and hang out everyday. Talk on the phone or IM each other. Now most of everyone ever does socially is facebook. People become more concerned about their pictures, and wall posts and less about how their other friends are doing. People "friend" each other on facebook only to increase their fake friend numbers.
I see a world where someday everyone will be glued inside their houses and all their social interaction occurs online. Just like the movie surrogates, facebook is a step in that direction if people take it that far.
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Maybe it's just me but everytime I look at mark zuckerberg, I just want to punch him in the face. He just looks like that kind of guy. Especially with how he destroyed with what was a great facebook idea, to the bloated privacy mess it is today.
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I thought this was a great article. The demise of society as we know it (or should I say "knew" it) can be attributed to social networks such as Facebook, here is a great link to an some of the latest research news such issues! I think everyone would find it very interesting, and it may be a wake up call to many!
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080922135231.htm
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Yeah I remember reading that. Facebook also inflates the small amount of narcissism inside of everyone, not just those individuals who have over narcissistic personalities to begin with. So as a result, most active facebook users are becoming more and more narcissistic. This is because facebook is all about increasing friend numbers, comments and likes on wall posts, status updates, and pictures ect.
I have a facebook because post 2008 American society and pop culture practically makes having a facebook your social ID card. After facebook made these privacy changes especially with the addition of recent activity (of which you can get rid of) I hate it! I hate facebook! I wish I could delete, I want to delete, but I'd also loose most of my social contacts. I hope facebook dies for my generation's sake!
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Facebook makes me want to move to an island with no internet access.
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