Facebook: The Good, The Bad, & The Annoying
A review by Elise Barrus
Facebook started in the United States and has now become the leading social networking site in the world, operating in over 90 countries (J. Smith). Facebook has hooked old and young alike with its easy friend finder and luring apps. Thanks to sites like Facebook, people today are able to connect with long lost friends. After high school the promises of staying in touch rarely remain intact as people move on to bigger and better things such as getting married, going to college, and having children. The fast paced era in which we live makes it almost impossible to stay in touch with a large variety of friends. It’s nice to have a medium in which we can connect with more people, if even on the superficial level, wherever they may be in the world. Facebook creates that medium.
Friend Finder
The ease of finding friends on Facebook is problematic! If you are like me, you may be inspired to search for and friend everyone you once knew, even casually, searching by name, school, city or even mutual friend. Before you know it, your friends list can become so cluttered as to defeat the purpose of a friends list! Considering the fact that at one time I had over 200 friends on my Facebook, I can attest that connecting with all 200 of them on a regular basis was unreasonable. Trying to stay connected with the ones I actually cared about proved even more difficult as they were often buried underneath a lot of jibber jabber. But even though it can be difficult managing that many friends, it is not that difficult to remove some friends if your list becomes crowded. As it turns out, the friend finder can potentially be a very useful tool. Once the excitement of finding everyone I once knew wore off, I was able to trim down my friends list to include only those I wanted to keep up with. It’s great to see what people are up to, but since I actually want to keep up with my friends, and not just appear like I care about that many people, the friends list had to get a cleanup. Warren, a Facebook user, made the following statement in regards to the friends list, “To each his or her own, but I limit my facebook contacts to people I know and would like to stay in contact with but can’t see or communicate with regularly (Facebook Profit Guide).
Sometimes there is a flow of friend requests that come from people you’ve never even heard of before (and don’t care to hear of for that matter). I have received friend requests from people who seem to find something of a connection with me based on the fact that we share a last name, or even a FIRST name! While this can certainly be annoying, it’s definitely not a Facebook deal breaker. If you are getting too many of these requests, fortunately, Facebook offers a solution! You have the option of setting your profile to ask the friend requester a personal question about yourself. Before allowing the, “OMG! We have the same last name! We have to be friends!” request, it might ask him or her to enter your maiden name, or high school, for example.
The Wall
The wall gives us, as Facebook users, plenty of freedom to post anything our mind fancies, whether others want to hear it or not. It could be anything, like, say, this for instance, “No better time to Facebook than when on the shitter. I talk to you while I poop.” And yes, I really did get that update from a friend. The Facebook wall is also a very good way to hate on friends and possibly even lose friendships that you may have had for years. The following dialogue between “friends” shows just how damaging a Facebook wall can be (Facebook).
While the Facebook wall can get ugly, the potential for problems lies heavily in who you allow to be your friend. Therefore, a cleanup might not be such a bad idea! Problems aside, the Facebook wall can be quite informative, and even entertaining. Many of my friends give updates on their lives that I may never know otherwise. Sometimes, however, people rely a little too much on Facebook as a means to update others on happenings of their lives. Warren brings up another great point when he states, “I do have a life off my computer.” Life on Facebook can become your entire life, if you let it. Even family members, supposedly those closest to us, must sometimes find out personal details of our lives at the same time every other user on our friends list does. Some people can’t seem to stay away from Facebook, even during times when they should be fully present at the most important events of their lives. Consider this Facebook user, she brings addiction to a whole new level: She is in the hospital, trying to give birth. She pushes and pushes but just can’t seem to get her mind off of Facebook. She asks the doctor for a break. Relief sets in as she grabs for her phone, logs into Facebook and posts, “I’m pushing now!” (K. Smith).
Facebook Apps
Facebook has many apps. Some of them are worthless but others are quite useful. WeRead is a great app for book lovers in that it allows users to post all the books they have read, want to read, and won’t read. All of users’ friends’ reads will be on there too, offering reviews and favorites for anyone looking for new reads. Similar to WeRead is the movie app. It is also a great place to go to see what friends are watching and to see if any spark your interest. On the other hand, apps like Farmville suffer and cause others to suffer tremendously as well, and not just those using it. Farmville is a little app that allows users to waste their time creating fake farms and raising fake animals. One need only Google the words “Farmville” and “annoying” to read page after page of comments posted by infuriated users, each begging for direction on how to remove those annoying Farmville updates. But apparently Farmville has the power to lure people in because a significant number of Facebook users are also Farmville junkies. Having a friend on Facebook, or several for that matter, who is a Farmville junkie is not desirable. Your wall of status updates will be crammed with breaking news of how So and So’s farm is coming along. “Julie just found a lost baby lamb – oh no!” and “Cindy’s pig found a brown truffle on your farm!” are not status updates I wish to waste my time (especially when I have so little of it) reading. Yet again, Facebook comes up with a solution for this annoying little feature and therefore makes the problems of Farmville and other irritating apps pale in comparison to the benefits of the more useful apps.
The Block Button
Not only are annoying updates a problem, but sometimes you get those friends who just won’t keep their opinions to themselves, be it political or religious. These friends must constantly preach and nag, day after day, posting sermons or what have you on their walls, and sometimes even yours! While the obvious solution to this is to remove the friend from your Facebook, you may be reluctant to step on any toes (despite the fact that they have crushed yours). Fortunately, problems like these can easily be solved with a simple click of a block button. Users have the option of blocking friends’ updates from popping up if they don’t desire to disown their friends completely for their annoying posting habits. The best part is that your friends won’t even realize you’ve blocked them and can go on posting an unlimited supply of hogwash without harming you or your wall.
Facebook Photos
Speaking of blocking, Facebook has some great tools for keeping your privacy. Photos can pop up from anyone who may have an embarrassing photo of you. The worst part is that any person can tag you in the photo, which will then display your “what was I thinking” moment to all who have access to that person’s and your Facebook page (for more help on this, refer to the “friends list cleanup” section of this article). There is a nice little button that you can click on to un-tag yourself from the undesirable photo before the whole world sees it, that is, if you get to it in time, and if the poster doesn’t re-tag you! But despite the potentially hazardous aspect of the photo feature, the ease and convenience that the photo up loader creates makes up for the risk. There is no limit to the amount of photos one can upload onto Facebook and it allows you to organize to your heart’s content. It’s great to be able to have all your photos (those you want to share anyway) in one place, creating easy access for those with whom you want to share. Photos can also be added directly from your mobile device which saves a lot of time and a lot of hassle. Besides, the potential hazard lies in you and your ability, or lack thereof, to use your judgment!
Conclusion
Yes, Facebook has frightening flaws and potential hazards, namely, it can influence you to carelessly waste your time trying to find “lost” baby animals, and it may also inspire you to pick a fight with someone by giving you a false sense of security and courage. After all, you are hiding behind your monitor instead of in front of the person’s face. And yes, Facebook may be creating a society of people who can’t even sit on the toilet without plugging in to the social network. But if you are a user like me, someone who genuinely wants to keep up with close friends online, Facebook can be a magnificent social medium. Yes, there is the potential disconnect, and a few minor privacy issues, but these flaws can pretty much be avoided by using a little common sense (learning how to sort through drivel doesn’t hurt either). The bottom line: Facebook has created a way for busy people to stay connected, at least on some level.
Works Cited
Facebook Fights 2011. Web. 21 July 2011. Path: fbfights.com
Facebook Profit Guide 20 July 2011. Web. 30 July 2011. Path: facebookprofitguide.com
Smith, Justin. Inside Facebook. WebMediaBrands, June 2010. Web. 15 July 2011. Path: insidefacebook.com
Smith, Kay. "Woman Updates Facebook Status While Giving Birth!." Business 2 Community. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Jan. 2011. Path: business2community.com.
