One of my friends recently quit Facebook. When asked about the reason he did mention a few, some of them made sense to both of us and some of them made sense only to him as I have my inferior comprehensive ability to blame.
According to him, he didn't want to be addicted to it, although he is not a Facebook freak, he feels he gets the compelling urge to draw himself over to Facebook often.
Also, he highlighted a point about the privacy. When his friends Like or Comment on any of his posts, the post becomes visible to the friends of friends as well. I am not sure if Facebook has any setting to control this. I have experienced similar things, although I don't care as much.
His friends list, and I am sure anyone else on Facebook will have contacts added as friends with whom we would have met very very briefly in our lifetime (I would like to think that we have made a lasting impression on someone or vice versa to add them to our friends list in an emotional rush). Things, one would like to share with a close group of friends will by all means be visible to these contacts as well, which doesn't put you in a very comfortable situation.
There are a lot of friends who live their lives in a different way than my humble friend and each one of us. People travel regularly far and wide and have lots to share. Some need frequent rushes of adrenaline via adventures and they have their stories to tell. And some others have lot of interesting things to post about. Whereas my humble friend and I and the likes of us, aren't bestowed with such opportunities or may be just don't have the inclination to it due to other personal or professional commitments and in the course we get into the mode of enviousness and self pity.
During the course of his being on Facebook, he has observed that so many people out there do things just so that they can post them on Facebook. They seem to need the attention out of their share of likes and comments. This is pretty common especially among the teenagers.
My good friend and to an extent I too have observed that while being social in the virtual world such as Facebook, people tend to forget their etiquettes in the physical world. All their mannerisms and humbleness is lost in the void. They seem not very accommodating and display the tendencies to be restless and impatient while dealing with closer members of the family and friends. These again are the symptoms seen among the teenagers around us and we may be the kind of influencers.
Facebook, although it helps reduce the distances between the family and friends when they are seas apart, it seems to do exactly the opposite of increasing the distances while the family is in the next room and friends are just doors away. The need for socializing face to face has become meaningless. In fact the need for talking to each other has become meaningless too because we know what our friends are up to and they know what we are digging via our posts. Where then do we find the "NEWS" element that we were curious to hear from a distant friend who used to be in touch once in a while?
Listening to what my good friend had to say, has put me into an awkward predicament. At the close of this, what has occurred to me is, Facebook is the business of the few to make money by having the world put their personal lives on the wire and wireless(Read: in the air).
Having said that, I am also sure that Facebook helps a different lot of people earn their bread and butter, helps keep a tab on friends and family and makes this world a lot smaller place!
There can be no conclusions drawn when taken this as a debate. Why would more than 500 million users worldwide with different levels of education and cognition be on Facebook and make it a success that it is today?
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