The Pros And Cons Of Facebook

Due to its virtual property people sometimes also consider Facebook friendship as superficial and pretentious. Niedzviecki (2011, p. 656) termed this relationship just more than nothing in life. However, after operating from February 04, 2004 in its existence of a decade Facebook has placed itself inevitable to 1.1 billion users (Wilson, 2014). Facebook has made itself unique in keeping up-to-date on friends' lives, widening social network and providing an active flow of information. These social communicating features have led Facebook gaining rapid popularity to its users.

“Facebook becomes dangerous” How much is too much information when it comes to sharing on Facebook? Many people have at least one Facebook account. Adults use Facebook to keep in touch with their high school friends, co- workers or with others involved in their lives. Teenagers use Facebook to connect with their friends and post documentation of their life by posting pictures and statuses. Facebook is the most popular social media site for people in all ages, but many of them don’t realize what danger Facebook can bring.

Social networking has been exploding with popularity since the 90s and has progressively attracting more and more different audience types. Some social networking sites that are currently popular are MySpace, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Tinder, and Snapchat but the most widely used social network is most likely Facebook. Facebook was originally created for a small specific group of college students but it expanded all over the country and eventually the world. Facebook is an outstanding social network that allows people to socialize and share what is going on in their lives. This particular online cyberspace allows people to fulfill their needs of social connection and self-expression as well.

In today’s age of internet and social media, almost everyone has a Facebook page. Most people use Facebook as a way to communicate with old friends and family that may live far away. Others use it to promote a business or event. Facebook has negative and positive aspects. Facebook is a great, as users can create and customize their own profiles with photos, videos, and other information about themselves.

With that many companies have begun to utilize social media for marketing their products. Social media marketing has become one of the most popular ways to reach customers, both business to business (B2B) and business to consumer (B2C). Out of the three thousand marketers surveyed in the 2013 industry analysis, 97 percent were using some type of social media to advertise their products. Also, 84 percent thought that social media was an important part of their business. Although there are many popular social media sites, Facebook is by far the dominant platform... ... middle of paper ... ...content naturally by visiting your page or seeing your post.

These social communicating features have led the facebook gaining rapid popularity to its users. Facebook in comparison to other e-communications allows a better understanding of how one's is going on. Keeping up-to-date by posting pictures, status and sharing one others feelings facebook users enjoy their freedom of communication and friendship. However, unhappiness and tiring some are also reported. Some users really spent more time as stated by King, 2011- "I was unhappy and feeling empty.

People even try to determine their popularity, success, and self worth through the amount of "likes" they get, and "friends" they have on social media. Another article by Feinstein et al., discusses an issue known as "Facebook Depression" which is an effect of spending too much time on social media. In other words, spending an extensive amount of time on social media gives users too much time to compare their appearance, success and popularity to other people they see on social media. Both articles show that social media is correlated to negative psychological effects such as depression and anxiety. Although the use of social media may increase interaction through the virtual world it actually decreases interaction with people in the real world.

The former include Facebook’s privacy policy, interface, applications and so forth. These features are set to promote openness and sharing tom make monitoring online activity and harvesting personal data easier. As a result, users are endangered to a form of surveillance. Moreover, Facebook is well-known for some unethical actions which caused controversies – such as changing privacy settings for every content and making it public. Nonetheless, although most people are aware of the invasion of privacy, they continue to use the platform because of its popularity and convenience.

The popularity of Facebook attracts more users to join this networking site, such that it is thought to be fashionable to use Facebook. Over time, Facebook has started to lose its true essence and initial concept of allowing users with common interests to come together. Criminal behaviour, insulting and indiscriminate postings are emerging exponentially due to the usage of Facebook. As a matter of fact, Facebook can be a useful medium if not being misused.

As the Internet changed the way people live: how they do shopping, organize their vacations, do school researches, social media changed the way in which people communicate and interact with each other. Through the use of social media people can express their ideas and thoughts, can share photos and videos and comment them. Social media became a place that provides a great opportunity to communicate with a large number of people not only for individuals, but also for companies. (http://www.parl.gc.ca/content/lop/researchpublications/2010-03-e.htm) Facebook was founded in 2004 and since then it’s the most popular social networking site. It provides customers opportunity to create a personal page, add friends, send messages, share pictures, videos and ideas, leave comments etc.