Facebook Timeline : Blessing or Curse?

Within next few weeks all of the Facebook users’ accounts will be switched to Timeline format whether they like it or not. This is the case with all free online services, since the companies offering them do not collect money directly in form of user fees; it is the company that decides everything.

 We all enjoy the Facebook. It gives us the ability to stay in contact with old friends and family members who live far away, as well as to make new ones. We also use it to introduce ourselves and our unique skills to the world. There is no question that Facebook made many things easier for all of us making us feel that we are connected, not alone in the increasingly lonely fast paced world, but not too many of us think of its drawbacks.

 Somehow many of us forget that Facebook just like all online forums and services are public, not private. Without thinking we put the most intimate information about our lives for everyone to see. It is common knowledge that employers often check their current and prospective employees’ Facebook pages, to see what kind of people they are off job. Many people ended up losing their jobs or even going to jail because of what they posted on their profile pages.

 Now the Timeline will be another tool that will make sharing all kinds of information about ourselves publicly even easier. How each one of us uses it will determine whether it becomes a blessing or curse. Every human invention, including the Internet and social networks on it, is a double edged sword that can be used for both good and evil. It can greatly benefit us and it can also harm us. The online world of the Internet and Facebook can be, and in fact is, as much our servant as it is our master.

 In his 2011 book “The Shallows” with the subtitle “What Internet Is Doing To Our Brains,” author Nicholas Carr described it as follows:

 “The computer screen bulldozes our doubts with its bounties and conveniences. It is so much our servant that it would seem churlish to notice that it is also our master.”

 So perhaps before we dive headlong into conveniences of Timeline, we better spend some time to think of how the information we share through it can impact our present and our future. The best way to prevent it from becoming a curse to us is to remember that it is not our personal diary, but a very public place and that everything we post there can work for us or against us.

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