Image source: thesun.co.uk
Facebook was launched in 2014 as a social network for college students but currently has over one billion active users. Facebook is changing our modern life from the way we receive information, meeting new people online and as an online marketing channel for business.
Pros:
1. Keep in touch: Facebook is one of the incredible means of keeping in touch with friends and families across the globe. You video chat, message and get
updates on real-life events.
2. Share with others: You can share your thoughts and ideas with others. You can also share what is happening in your life with families and friends through Facebook. If you’re organizing an event, launching a new product or sharing on your photo album then Facebook is an appropriate tool for sharing with others.
3. Convenient means of communication: It is a quick and convenient means of communication to people across cities and countries. The Facebook social tool acts as the cheapest and easiest way to get your message out to a large group of people.
4. Build your Journal: All the updates you make to your account on photographs, events attended, status updates help in building your personal life journal. You can always go back to your timeline and relive the experiences of your past.
5. Easy setup: Opening a Facebook account and building your own profile is very easy. The network is free and easy to navigate through the platform as you interact with others.
6. Enhance your social skills: Interacting with a diverse group of people through Facebook build your social skills, meet new people and boost your self-esteem.
7. Educational: There are pages built specifically for discussion and share ideas on a specific area and people can use it as a tool for learning and interact with groups with same interests.
8. Facebook for business: Every competitive business needs an online presence. Facebook offers a good avenue for businessmen to market, promote, create and maintain a good relationship with the target audience.
9. Receive news and information: You can receive real-time information update on the latest news in the environment. Companies use it to announce new brands of products and services.
10. Facebook apps: There are various free and paid apps you can at your disposal. You can use an event application to organize events and easily gather people to attend the event.
Cons:
1. Time-wastage: Over one million daily Facebook users spend a significant amount of time reading status updates, viewing photos, videos, and pages they may not be interested in. The time wasted on Facebook can be used to do something productive elsewhere.
2. Privacy issues: Facebook opens security loopholes for personal details shared through the social feeds.
You need to consider what you share online and who you share with.
3. Freedom of expression: Everyone on Facebook can post what they want and sometimes offensive and inappropriate content may be posted.
4. Cyberbullying: Over the recent past, cyberbullying has been a major concern to everyone. There are various reported cases where individuals have committed suicide after cyberbullying through the social account.
5. Target advertising: Information stored on your profile can be used to build a targeted advertising for goods and services.
6. Very addictive: A large percentage of teens are addictive to Facebook social features and games. This makes them antisocial as the face to face meetings are replaced by online interactions.
7. Fake profiles: People can create fake profiles to stalk someone or damage their reputation.
8. Identity theft: There is a high possibility of identity theft from the site.
9. Annoying adverts: There are a lot of commercial adverts on the website which sometimes may limit your overall experience in the site.
10. Frequent updates: With frequent changes to the site, you need to update your security settings more often to keep up with the updates.
The biggest downside to Facebook is the fact that they are irresponsibly biased on many topics which need to be published. A more professional approach would be to remain Neutral instead of throwing our posts back in our faces under the guise of “Community Standards.
I quit using FB September, 2020, after watching ‘The Social Delma’ and realized I WAS being targeted with specific information and comments from others especially concerning political items and I was alienating much of my extended family by reposting things that may or may not have been totally true. I didn’t delete my FaceBook account because I still use Messenger to keep in contact with friends and family and many are not in my Messages folder or they don’t use that one.