One positive of Facebook as stated by muchtech.org’s
article “What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Facebook” is that “Facebook
helps you connect and share with the people in your life. You can connect and find your old school
friends and college friends also you can connect with your relatives.” With
that being said Facebook has over 1 billion users so the chances are the person
you may be looking for is probably on Facebook, unless that is they have taken
a sabbatical from life and just wants to remain off the grid. Facebook allows
you to close the gap with friends and family no matter how far the distance as
long as you have internet connection and let’s face it, it is probably harder
to find a place with no internet than it is with.
A second advantage of Facebook is that “Facebook is
free and it's one of the best medium for communication.” (Tnvrstar). To me this
very big advantage allows the masses to access facebook no matter what your
financial situation is. It can be easy to overlook how many people do struggle financially
on a daily basis because after all we are all in college so our lives cannot be
that bad as compared to a person who is homeless or struggles to find a mean
every day. With a communication service the size of facebook and the fact that it’s
free, that allows large groups of people to have a voice and be part of
progressive movement such as facebook. It also gives them a chance to stay in
tune in what may be happening in the world today.
As most of may know from firsthand experience Facebook
can end up sucking up many hours of our day. Scientificera.com stated that one
of the disadvantages of Facebook is that it is a waste of life. They would continue
by stating “One of the biggest Facebook disadvantages is that it addictive or
can become addictive easily. Once you
get connected with your Facebook friends you will realize how frequently you
open Facebook and also spend so much time in commenting, viewing other’s pictures,
playing games or doing other stuff. Many people know drawbacks of using
Facebook but can’t stop using it.” I myself am guilty of this. I may log on
because I am bored and have a minute or two but then the next thing I know it’s
a half hour later and I am still digging through my news feed to see what
interesting things I may come across. While it is great to kill time it can
also lead to killing your productivity whether it be at work or while sitting
at home and you should possibly be working on this blog…
A very big disadvantage of Facebook is that it can
ruin your professional career, or even worse, destroy it before it even has a
chance to take off. Socialmedia.knoji.com would go on to write “You might be
one of those millions of people who are unemployed and use Facebook to post
offensive images of you and your friends. Though it is fun and provides humor
for all your friends to see, it can be a major drawback when you apply for a
job. Employers will want to know more about you and by searching on these
social networking sites which contain your offensive content, employers may get
distressed and could result in losing the job role that you applied for.”
(Choudhury).
While many of us may not agree with this type of background check our parents
did not have to go through to get a good job but when you think about it do you
blame companies? So even though it may seem innocent to you because it was just
a couple drinks with some friends in a private area and you turn 21 in a couple
months, companies can still see this and deem you unworthy of the position they
are trying to fill. So next time you feel like kicking back with some friends
and getting a little “weird” just remember, post it to your second facebook you
have that you keep hidden so you can have a nice pristine and professional looking
facebook that employers will be drooling over when they try and “spy” on you.
There are many advantages and disadvantages to
social media site such as Facebook but we have to ask ourselves the question
that does the positives out weight the negatives. To me if you are smart about
it and play your cards right you can use social media to your advantage while
still having a blast with life. Start a second Facebook to help build yourself
up and bolster your chances of grabbing that dream job. No one has to know that
when you were 19 you and some buddies grabbed some Mike’s Hard Lemonade and got
a little silly while drawing profanity on each other’s face one by one as you
slowly all began to pass out at 10pm. Keep it your dirty little secret with
your friends and your second Facebook which could be called Carlos Danger. I
mean think about it, who is going to check to find your alternative ego under
Carlos Danger besides your best friends who know you for stupider things than
that anyways. So if you ask me I am all for social media and if you really don’t
like the negatives just be a little smart about it and you can avoid just about
all of them while still enjoying all the great things that come with social media
sites such as Facebook. So I encourage you to go out there and share a kitten
video but only after you go fancy yourself up some and create a kick-ass profile
that makes you look like you are only trying to figure out how to make your
second million dollars.
WORKS
CITED
2) tnvrstar, . N.p.. Web. 3 Mar 2014.
<http://tnvrstar.hubpages.com/hub/The-advantages-and- disadvantages-of-using-Facebook>.
4) Choudhury, S. N.p., n. d. 3 Mar 2014.
<http://socialmedia.knoji.com/4-disadvantages-of-using- facebook/>.
