Webupon

Facebook is a social networking site that allows anyone to join and everyone to connect.  I feel like it was created with good intentions of connecting people and allowing folks to make new friends.  Originally it was limited to college students.  Slowly but surely high school students began creating accounts. Now it seems as though everyone with Internet access has a Facebook and checks it at least five times a day.  Why? Why do we all waste so much time on that confabbed contraption? It is a question everyone asks but no one can answer.

I feel Facebook has become a social addiction that is quickly getting out of control.  Do not get me wrong I think Facebook serves as much good as it does bad.  It allows long lost relatives to reconnect across the country.  It’s great for sharing photos and videos on the web.  It allows individuals to vent without really confiding in people.  It has a ton of great social functions that we all love and have begun to take for granted.  

Their are some flaws with all of our favorite social networking site though.  Namely, most of us are guilty of wasting A WHOLE LOT of time on the site.  It has began to wormhole the Internet along with sites like YouTube.  We have began to make to Internet a quasi 21st century television.  We all use the SAME sites ALL the time.  It means what was once the information superhighway has become the dull and gray rural road.  Our mice direct us to the same set of sites all day long, and Facebook is one of the major culprits.  The Internet is more than that, it is more than a social network, it needs to be used for knowledge and cultural exchange beyond status updates.  I find myself logging onto the web and immediately checking my facebook, Why? I honestly do not know.  Is it because i want to see what other people are saying about me or is it because i want to see what i have to say about other people?  Facebook has made us all creepers for lack of better word.  

Most likely the worst part of Facebook in recent memory is how slow it has become.  On my campus logging onto facebook in the afternoon is an exercise in futility! You can load maybe three pages before it completely stops working and cannot connect to the server.  This makes every ones most popular URL the most useless, seemingly the worst case scenario.  However, it wasn’t until i saw myself getting so mad at not being able to log on that i realized how little i actually needed the site.  By not being able to access Facebook as frequently as i used too i saw how little i need it.  At this point i check my account a few times a week.  I find it suitable and even favorable because you almost always have comments and notifications if you only check it a few times a week.  

Facebook is a good time.  However it is also a waste of time.  I am truly jealous of my friends that don’t have an account because i feel like they are more individualized than i am.  Is it an addiction? Yes.  How are we supposed to quit, we can not.  We are social creatures and Facebook feeds our need to be accepted.  Facebook has faults, but lets be honest, we are not going to stop using it.  Now…i have got to go check my Facebook.

Image via CrunchBase