Facebook - good or bad?

 

http://nickbarricella.hubpages.com/hub/The-Positive-and-Negative-Effects-of-Facebook

There are obviously millions and millions of Facebook users all over the world. I, myself, am one of them. I use Facebook for all sorts of reasons. I have family in Utah that I don't get to see often, so I keep up with them on there. My dad lives 7 hours away in another state, so he gets on my profile to see pictures of my daughter. I'm always posting statuses about the cute things she does or says. And I am constantly posting pictures of her, mainly because I think she is the most beautiful little angel in the whole world! Haha. But seriously. There's a ton of things you can do with Facebook, but there's a lot of debate on whether its a good thing or a bad thing. Clearly from what I just said, I agree with the author on the positive things he says about Facebook. It does make it extremely easy to keep in touch with family. Instead of trying to send a picture to each of your family members, you can just upload it and everyone can see. Another thing that I find helpful is the "create event" part of Facebook. Instead of trying to write down everyone's address and pick out invitations and remember to get them all sent out on time, you can create a simple event on Facebook and invite everyone at once with a click of a button. You can also create group messages to send to everyone you need to and much more. It's also easy to make new friends, although I don't try that too often because I'm not just real social with new people! Lol. But you can see who your friends are connected to and you can connect with them too. Or you can add people once you meet them and connect that way. It's also a good way to express yourself being that you have the freedom to post anything you'd like to on your profile! It's also an extremely good way to express the things you care about. You can create pages for certain things, share prayer chains, show people pages for charity, post about your faith, scriptures, devotions, etc. Being a Christian, I believe that Facebook can be a great tool to minister to people all over the world! 

I also agree with the negative effects he talks about. Cyber bullying is one of the main problems I see with social media. It's entirely too easy for people to sit behind a computer and keyboard and bully someone when they don't have to be face to face with them. There have been multiple stories of suicides, people being put into mental institutions, etc etc. due to being cyber bullied. That being said, Facebook is just one of MANY sites that can be used for cyber bullying. I can say that I have known some relationships that have been ruined because of how easy it is to I guess to sneak around on Facebook or because of some posts, or whatever the case may be. However, if people are going to do those things, they'll find another way if not Facebook. I can definitely agree that it could be a distraction. I can honestly say that it's distracted me before. Maybe someone is trying to talk to me but I've just found a post I'm really interested in reading so I kind of just tune them out. Yea, it's happened before. Don't pretend it hasn't for you! Haha. But really, sometimes we get so wrapped up in making sure we post about our perfect lives and making sure everyone likes those posts, that we forget to just live and enjoy the moment. Insecurity has been the subject of many Facebook debates. I can see it, someone has a bigger house, a nicer vehicle, a prettier face or body, nicer clothes, a better job, the list goes on. I can't say that I've never been jealous of some of my friends on Facebook. And about the stalker portion.. Well of course there's that potential with every site you put information on. That's why you set your profile to private so only people you give permission to can view your profile information. And you have to ALWAYS be careful of who you add and let be friends with you. 

There are pros and cons to every social media website, but as long as you're careful and use it for the right reasons, I think Facebook is an awesome tool!