I want to begin this posting with a word of warning. I will be discussing the social behemoth known as Facebook, and I will not be speaking of it in a positive light. If you are a big fan of Facebook and all that it entails, and are easily offended by anyone speaking against it, then I would suggest you stop reading now. If you aren't, then by all means feel free to continue. Bear in mind, this is my own personal opinion on the subject and I am not trying to shove my ideals down anyone's throat. I simply feel the need to express my opinion on this issue and you can take it or leave it as you please.
When Facebook first came on the scene, it was a fresh, new concept regarding social networking and media. Very quickly, it exploded into the number one social media site in the world and has stayed there to this day. Then, Facebook started introducing games by publishers such as Zynga and changed things once again. To this day, you say the word Farmville, Cityville, or Castleville and without any other frame of context 99% of the people you talk to will know exactly what you are talking about. Facebook has basically become the place to be on the internet to do everything from fire off a quick note about how you are feeling to building mega metropolises and everything else in-between.
Now, let me say straight away that Facebook and its base concept were actually a good idea. It was conceived of as a place that people could go on the internet to keep in contact with friends and family in a way perhaps more convenient and much cheaper than using a telephone (those long distance charges add up). Unfortunately, the idea has grown fangs sharp enough to rip out the throat of any unsuspecting Facebook user.
I'll start with the basic use of Facebook, social media interaction. While it began as a means to communicate with groups of people, it has quickly changed to become a blatant popularity contest. How many people will add other users as "friends" simply so they will be able to rack up their pool? I would wager that most of the friends on a person's Facebook account are in actuality strangers. This is much the same as Twitter, which was undoubtedly started along a similar line of thinking and has turned into a contest to see who can have the most followers listening to some inane babble that means absolutely nothing to anyone other than the poster. What this serves to do is essentially cheapen the concept of a friend. Once upon a time, a friend was someone with whom you shared common interests and ideas, someone you hung with rather often that you could speak with about issues that you couldn't discuss with anyone else because you trusted your friend. Now, the word friend, at least in the context of Facebook, is just another nameless face in a list of nameless faces that just blindly accepted a join request. The reality is, most of these "friends" probably don't give a damn about the person they just friended, and could very likely use the information being put into posts or on profiles against the individual.
Which brings this discussion to a very serious and dangerous topic, bullying. Not so very long ago, bullying involved one person directly confronting another in what was mostly a one-on-one situation. Having been bullied quite often in my youth and even now, I know first hand that feeling of helplessness and despair of being picked on for whatever multitude of reasons the bully chose to select. More than once I didn't want to go to school or even work because I didn't want to even look at the bully in question for fear that even the slightest word or gesture could spark some kind of derogatory comment aimed in my direction in front of peers that others would laugh about. That kind of bullying is bad enough, but when you add Facebook into the mix you have the formula for a potential firestorm that can, and has, caused the end of a life. With Facebook, bullying has taken on a whole new dimension. Now, not only is a person confronted by the bully themselves, but the entire community where they live and even complete strangers who just happen to be friends with one person or another. What was once just a few seconds or minutes of discomfort or humiliation now has the potential to turn into an unending stream of degradation, humiliation, and ridicule. As I have said before, this can, and often has, resulted in the victim choosing to end their life in a desperate effort to escape their torment. This is the power Facebook has, not to bring people closer together, but to become a high tech weapon to be used against people.
Facebook has also become key evidence in court cases. Now, more than ever, lawyers are choosing to bring Facebook content into criminal and civil trials. The off-handed comment you made about not liking someone has suddenly become evidence. It no longer matters what the context is or what you meant by the comment, it is now in the legal system to be twisted and stretched until it's screaming for dear life. Do you really want to have to consider everything you say as though it could possibly be read before a judge?
Personal encounters is another very dicey issue when it comes to Facebook. I would reference the movie Catfish as a very clear example of what I am referring to. The basic premise of the movie is a young man meets a girl on Facebook, becomes her friend, and the two form a twisted kind of online relationship. Without delving into all of the details, this young man eventually comes to the conclusion that the Facebook profile is fake and chooses to go meet the person with his friends. The end result is the person who created the Facebook account is actually a middle-aged woman with cancer (another lie) who has utilized her young daughter in a manipulative way to garner interest in her. It is also revealed that this woman created over a dozen other fraudulent Facebook accounts to form a familial unit on the site. In essence, everything about the woman in question is a lie. Now, whether or not the movie was factual in nature is truly besides the point. There is no question that people have created one or multiple Facebook accounts with fictitious profiles in order to garner interest in themselves and attempt to manipulate people into liking them and perhaps even forming relationships with them. You might ask, "How is this different from the multitude of online dating sites?" The difference would be Facebook is free to use, so there is no limit to how deep the lies can be built just online alone, and Facebook is so insanely popular that most of the people on the planet use it. There is also almost no regulation regarding Facebook as well, so anyone can pretty much say anything to anyone within Facebook. This can cause all kinds of problems both from relationship standpoints and bullying issues from above.
The games in Facebook are another major issue in my mind. Yes, they might have started out as a fun amusement, but they have quickly turned into an addiction that very easily rivals most illegal drugs. I did try one or two of these games and very quickly found them to be boring and stopped playing them. For a tremendous amount of people, however, they have very quickly evolved into an addiction that I referred to earlier. It has gotten to the point where family and friends are now ignored in lieu of needing to do something with the city you've built and a person's life revolves around making that digital city or farm or whatever bigger and bigger. People also start creating fictional Facebook profiles just so they can utilize the friend factor to do that much more within the game. The fact that the game tries to entice you into paying for items that can make your gaming experience that much better or longer is no better than sticking a gambling addict in front of a computer to play video poker. How many people have flushed their paychecks or savings down the drain just so they could have that one item in the game that they could never get if they played for free. Relationships have also suffered from these Facebook games. While I will admit I do not have any data on this subject, there is no question in my mind that a great many relationships have suffered or even ended, possibly badly, because one party has become so addicted to these games. It has even gotten to the point where these games have caused violence. There have been numerous reports of people murdering, yes murdering, their spouses or significant others simply because of something that occurred with one of these games. I think that tends to blow away (no pun intended) the concept of violent video games corrupting the minds of youth when people are killing other people because of a simulation building game. This also falls into the category of how people react to changes in Facebook statuses and how people react when someone they are in a relationship with suddenly changes their status from "in a relationship" to "single". While I have not heard of any incidents involving homicide, there is no question it has caused a great number of arguments.
I'm sure that I could go on and on for hours about Facebook and all of its foibles, but I won't so that dialogues can be opened for discussion on this matter. I, once upon a time, had a Facebook page. I created it with the idea that I could keep in contact with friends and family, maybe share some funny photos or videos, and be able to have some kind of a connection with the people who are important to me but are not geographically near me. I ended up hardly ever using it and stopped even looking at it after perhaps three or four months because the majority of what I saw were status updates regarding games. Let me just repeat myself when I say the concept of Facebook is an admirable one. Unfortunately, either due to greed or some other reason, it has grown into something enormous that is quite literally out of control. You cannot look at any product, television program, business, etc., without seeing or being told about a link to a Facebook page. It truly has gotten to the point where we all live in a Facebook world.
The biggest problem? I hate Facebook.
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