Facebook: the rise of Social Networking
Almost nine years ago, in February 2004, when Zuckerberg was a 19-year-old sophomore at Harvard, he started a Web service from his dorm. It was called Thefacebook.com, and it was billed as “an online directory that connects people through social networks at colleges.” In the year 2010, Facebook — minus the “the” — added its 550 millionth member. One out of every dozen people on the planet has a Facebook account. They speak 75 languages and collectively lavish more than 700 billion minutes on Facebook every month. Last month the site accounted for 1 out of 4 American page views. Its membership is currently growing at a rate of about 700,000 people a day. (Source: unknown)
The seemingly uncomplicated world of Facebook.
On the brighter side Facebook has enabled long lost friends to meet again and experience nostalgia, individuals to percolate their ideas, entrepreneurs to advertise their wares, and social and religious organisations to further their cause. With flexible privacy settings, it makes it possible to intelligently limit information to people on your friends’ list. It is cool to be on it, and if you haven’t got an account then you raise eyebrows: “what you are not on FB?”
On the flip side:
1) Facebook Management: If you can’t manage this, it will manage and control you. For the bored, the lonely and the emotionally gullible, it’s a trap that has the potential to suck valuable time and resources. By the time you’ve finished profile hopping and commenting, you would have lost out on precious time which was meant for something important. Know that “Facebook” can wait, the world is not going to end if you do not reply immediately to a pending comment, or if you haven’t logged in to accept a friend’s request. If your cyber-friends can take offence to the silly fact that you have delayed things, then let them: you are better off without friends like these.
Login when you have time…make this definitely not a priority.
2) Friendship has a new definition: Isn’t it an irony that you have friends on Facebook whom you don’t greet when you meet. Friends who have sent you a request because you have seen each other in the organization that you work for or the gym that you go to or the restaurant that you eat in…people with whom you have never interacted. Isn’t it bizarre that the word “Friendship” is losing its charm and most definitely its values?
Do you have friends on your list whose values do not match that of yours; they have pictures on their profiles that are obnoxious ? Do they write on your wall things that you don’t subscribe to? Do you have a person in your list who you personally think is a nuisance and yet publically your friend?
Know that it is not mandatory for you to please everyone, practice truth in action, say ‘NO’—of course politely– to requests from people you are not comfortable with. You don’t need to be a people-pleaser, and you don’t need the whole world to be your friends. Come on! Realistically speaking you cannot manage with your existing group of close friends, how in the world do you think you would mange with this ever growing number?
3) Flaunt it on Facebook: Do you know that “Privacy” is a grossly misunderstood word today, at least with the advent of social networking sites and people who subscribe to it. With almost everyone on social media trying to flaunt it: whether it be their gorgeous self, their beautiful looking spouse, their house or their dogs, it looks like fewer people put any thought as to how “private” their information really is with the so called privacy settings. Interestingly, information has a way of passing on. No matter how tight your security settings are, you will be surprised to see how that precious picture of yours surfaced on the Web. What is surprising is that information (pictures, videos etc) that would have remained closely guarded a decade ago, only to be circulated among close friends, is not considered private anymore.
Know that your personal moments are yours and you wouldn’t want a third party or someone who is not part of your life using, manipulating or ogling at it. Share it by other means.
4) The end of physical interpersonal relationships: The world is going virtual from real: it is just the opposite of how things were supposed to be, and yet people are not bothered. With every passing day more and more things are turning virtual. Cyber reality includes: friendship, dating, sex, gaming and so on and so forth. This is not how we were meant to be communicating—you don’t what our future generations to communicate this way: a growing number of men and women who live in, and flash proof of the existence from these puny cyberholes that they are trapped in.
Come out in the sunshine from the confines of that dark dimly lit room from where you spend enormous amounts of time tapping the keys. Come out and feel the breeze and the smells, meet people for real. Laugh, play and cry… most importantly reach out for real!
Concluding Notes:
Facebook is a great tool if used productively and wisely.
But, Facebook is not communication; it’s not even close to the real thing.
Vinod
shikshaconsulting.com 