As an adolescent who’s seen Facebook change and grow into a company that eventually gave way to advertising and started to cash out millions on people’s gossips and personal lives, I have come to define it’s objectives and importance that seems to have overwhelmed our lives at a certain point. There’s a thin line that defines seriousness and amusement which has been blurred by the growing network. And it seems that today, not being a part of Facebook is looked on as “uncool”. This virtual world has created a certain unrest among us, and the faster it’s “walls” are updated the more we are hooked into it.
To me, it has always been about me on Facebook. And why not, it promises the same anyway. So here’s my take on how the common man might use this virtual world to his leverage, and save himself from Facebook addiction.
While it may be just a social network and a way for people to connect to each other, It has, to a select few become a portal to escape into, while still enjoying the warmth of their rooms ( I say this, because it’s freaking cold in Mysore, turns off an early morning schedule! ) It has become a place where the word shy does not play any particular role. Although it has been misused and abused by a large extent, it serves as an advantage. A man who’s shy might find himself stalking the women who he loves and to be honest, all of us at some point have snooped around Facebook in curiosity of what a particular person was up to. Though ethically wrong, Facebook never seemed to make it so. Which brings me to the point I wanted to tell you, Facebook in it’s literal term is a collection of your memories, photographs, updates, friends, chats etc. So it depends on the way we use it.
By no means am I trying to put Facebook at a critics perspective, the amount of power it provides is the ability to showcase ourselves, and so have we with all the kitty photographs and the latest trend of the Internet “meme”! And it seems people over at HQ have had enough, news of a redesigned news feed had cropped up that implemented an algorithm which theoretically subdued most junk updates and surfaced those that matter, like status updates from your friends. And it would be a warm welcome from me if they succeed.
But more often than ever, we are better off without status updates from a select few. Like the ones that make completely no sense at all, and vague outbursts of anger. Facebook sure isn’t trying to impart any sort of knowledge and it never intended to as well. But what compels you to reach a point of exhaustion is the numerous self proclaimed Photographers, Pages, Groups, and app updates that are irritating. I am better off not to divulge in the pitfalls of a network. Of all the profoundly unrelated things going on in Facebook, none of them seem to be of a particular importance. You might argue that it made an effort to get us all together and to connect in a certain way, but Facebook addiction has reached a limit, constant updates and the thirst for personalized news about our social lives have changed the way we react to those intimate friends and relatives. Breakups, divorces, love, marriage, business deals, hiring employees and many more are based on our profiles on Facebook and our behavior online. We are yet to implore on the real world effects of this network, and if it already be established then I am yet to discover such an impact that I might otherwise have overlooked.
Until then, I use Facebook in a reserved way, to share my achievements, happiness, thoughts and my Photographs to the select friends I have, I chose my friends and I chose wisely when I accepted those that mattered to me, and rejected those that didn’t. After all my chats and updates are there to stay forever in a server somewhere, and why not make the most of it. It’s a bland choice, you either fool around or suit up and be a gentleman. And I choose to be better.
