Fact: there are more people in Facebook than there were on planet 200 years ago.
Photo from Andrew Feinberg’s flickr
Why You Have Facebook
There are one billion Facebook accounts. While the main use of the social networking site was to ‘connect’, they have seduced us to keep coming back more than once a day. The company itself reported that more the 50% of Facebook active users log in daily. ‘Connect’ is a broad vision, but there are more specific reasons why we keep on letting Facebook trick us to burn something we never know how much we have, time.
1. Need to be social
We are indeed social beings. From the very start of human existence, we long for involvement. We wanted to be part of a group or conversation. And it seems like everybody has Facebook so you don’t want to be left behind.
2. Ease of chat communication
Facebook poses an easy reach of communication. But if Facebook is the easiest and the best mean of communicating is highly debatable. For instance, Facebook’s Events Invitation is so cheap, because most of the time you just invite people without thinking. It is the same way with Birthday Greetings – a thing that became phenomenal and mandatory it almost make every ‘Happy Birthday’ greetings meaningless.
3. Convenience of sharing photos
To share is also an innate urge of humans. We wanted to share photos to those people important to us and who cares about us. It is convenient to do it on Facebook rather than, lets say, an email. But the catch? Majority of your friends list do not care about the photos you upload, especially the lunch you ate or the new planner you’ve got.
4. FB Games
Ah, the era of online gaming. This time, you don’t have to play alone but you can play against your friends or a stranger. The Tetris trend was revived. But for a gamer such as myself, this is not quality gaming worth spending hours everyday.
Why You Can Quit
There’s no argument that Facebook has positive offerings. I just mentioned 4 reasons why we use Facebook; and at some level, I admit, that Facebook can be an ease. But phone and email can already do the ‘connect’ that Facebook is dispensing; and more so was natural and sterling Face-to-Face Communication. We can quit Facebook without losing something substantial.
1. Takes Time
I couldn’t stress enough that Facebook is a waste of our valuable time. It can be a distraction. Talk about that annoying applications, like ‘What is your superhero name’, ‘I found out the cause of my death. What about you?’, ‘Today’s Horoscope’ and many more of naive irrelevance. I know it is fun at first, but now it’s just tiring and rubbish.
2. Promotes Narcissism
I’m wet! Just took a bath
Yummy, lunch for me.
My dog just barfed!
Hair is messy, embarrassing!!
Facebook became a home for useless and senseless updates. These updates only feed the desire to attract attention, which may be a pitiful attempt to improve self-image.
3. Promotes Insecurity
Contrary to its purpose, it drives you away from your friends. It keeps you and your friend separated; secluded from each other by knowing activities they have done without you and your knowledge. Since most in friend list are acquaintances, the site has a low real friend ratio.
4. Unprecedented Effects
- Happy photos in Facebook is psychologically proven to have made people sad.
- Sometimes I just find it funny when I see a comment with a mandatory but inappropriate HAHA/LOL in the end. The use of LOL and emoticons is a masculinity problem.
- Instant Messaging (IM), such as omg, wtf, haha, lol, y?, u r, trueeee, yea?! and many more are “Linguistic Ruin”. The study of Tagliamonte and Denis proves that IM leads to “breakdown in the English Language”, impairing one’s grammar and spelling skills.
- After compiling materials from American Psychological Association, Techowiz.com verified that FB can harness Narcissistic tendencies as well as anxiety and depression among other psychological disorders. It can also distract children from studying leading to lower grades.
Why are you in Facebook? Why aren’t you in Facebook?
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Facebook: Friends’ Happy Pictures Make You Sad?; ABC News
Linguistic Ruin? LOL! Instant Messaging and Teen Language; University of Toronto
Mr. Darcy Might Have LOL’d: On Male Usage of Emoticons and Laugh-cronyms; The Hair pin
Psychological Study Highlights Negative Impact of Facebook on Teenagers; Techowiz
Moment Matters 
I like this discussion of yours about facebook. How many times have I gone online with a particular objective in mind, only to be lured into visiting my Facebook page. Hell yeah, so much time down the drain!
PS: Feel free to visit my blog anytime you wish. 🙂
Hey there! The key reasons why I’m cutting back on my facebook usage and “friends” are the wasting of time and narcissism. It kills me knowing how much time I’ve wasted on that website. I also have experienced a plethora of negative emotions as the result of the narcissism of many people on the website, some of who are my real friends, which is scary.
Facebook has that effect of keeping us coming back even if there’s really nothing left to do there than gossip. So much time was wasted so we keep the urge of doing it then I believe the habit dies out.
Great post! I admit that I’m scared to get off of Facebook. I feel like I won’t know what’s going on with anyone. Then again, why do I need to know literally everything everyone is doing? Hmm… you’ve got me thinking!
I’m pleased, thanks! It is good to keep ourselves updated but only to close friends and families and not to literally everyone of your friends list. And we also limit our time spent in the networking site. It’s crazy how some people spend all day in it.
Good article. Now I understand better, why I don’t like fb 😉 And other social sites.
Good post! I would say there are some truthful aspects to this but I love social media… I’ve deleted my FB for a month before, took a Twitter hiatus… but I do it temporarily knowing I’ll be back because I’ll admit it, I’m an internet junkie.
Surely Mr. Zuckerberg must be going mad hearing the cash registers ringing as hundreds of millions of users login, of course mad in a happy sort of way. But, as human beings, I guess we will constantly strive for the next “fix” and FB has turned out to be that. This will, perhaps, spawn opportunities of its own, “how to spend less time on FB” being one such.
I hope so. Although you can see how Facebook desires to continue having millions of login. With all these design reformat, additional features and promotions to countries where Facebook is yet unorthodox, Facebook plans to keep us hooked.
Facebook was a struggle in my last semester in college. 32 page paper, or check out what a friend i haven’t seen in 12 years is doing??
I can relate to that. What sucks is when you do your best to focus on your paper and to see your groupmates merely facebook-ing.
I de-activated my facebook account almost 2 weeks ago. And I’m glad I did it. I was an fb addict, then I realized it’s a waste of my time looking at other people’s life as if it’s “perfect”. I feel fuss-free now, whatever that might be. If those people on fb need me and really are my friends, they will know where and how to find me. I do not need FB to stay in touch! Great post!
Good article. I have been spending less and less time on FB, preferring to post on my blog and let it automatically post on FB. I primarily use FB to share articles I feel are important and to encourage other people by praying for them, sending cyber hugs, etc. I live out in the sticks so face to face social interaction is not real doable. Sadly, everyone is so busy that phone interactions seldom happen. But why should they when so many people connect on FB???
I hate the games and the trivial stuff that you mention. I hate the bad grammar and spelling. And I hate how it can easily draw me in. I, too, can find myself spending too much time there. One thing that helps is to go in…read…reply…and logout. Once I am logged out, there is no longer an open tab drawing me in with its siren call.
I have debated on dropping FB a number of times, but some of the relationships I have on there are real and those are the ones I focus on. I have those people grouped into one subgroup and that is where I check first.
I can also say that reading the blogs of others can be just as much as a time spender as FB. I only have so many hours in a day and it is a real challenge to spend them wisely, whether on FB, on emails I don’t really need to get, on blogs I don’t really need to read and on it goes.
I guess it really is about time management. No matter what I do, I have to ask myself…is this worth the time spent? Are the people worth the time spent? Will it help me to achieve my goals in life? Will it build strong relationships or will it just dilute all of my relationships by spreading myself too thin? Hard questions, but they need to be answered. I prefer deep rather than shallow connections, but I find myself settling for the shallow because the available deep ones are so hard to find.
Gosh, I get this article really got me thinking! (LOL) <—- just had to put that in.
I’m pleased to know your thoughts. You’re right, it really is about time management. After all, we strive for what is worth of our time. Thanks for sharing!
You make a lot of good points here! I don’t spend a lot of time on FB, but I have lately noticed one of the effects you mention: feeling left out when my friends are doing things without me. Also insecurity about people who are doing great things in the world compared to me. I expect that eventually I’ll get bored with it–until then I think I’m okay as long as I don’t overdo it.
How ironic that this article has a share on facebook button. LOL 🙂
You make some very valid points. The paper by Tagliamonte and Denis is compelling reading but, and it’s the core to all of this discussion, what good does that paper, or any of our comment do in relation to the writing ability of youngsters today.
I have a very good friend who posts on FB. She is about 45 years old, and her spelling is atrocious. Her 20 year old son is actually so much better than her and he posted a joke today that involved a very subtle use and interplay of the words sinking and syncing. He must be the exception to the rule.
The other issue to take into account is the ridiculous way in which pop bands misuse or completely miss-spell certain words in their name or in their songs. This then becomes ‘the norm’ for kids as they don’t know the correct way to spell the words in the first place – ‘Dontcha’ – springs to mind.
So, in my humble opinion (Not IMHO!), it’s not just FB or SMS or IM’s. It’s the general malaise that’s crept into children’s spelling and vocabulary and, unfortunately, I don’t think there’s a cure.
J
That’s a good point you mentioned. These pop bands have a huge influence in the behavior and thinking of the kids nowadays; and yet this influence was unwarranted.
I really think that the linguistic damage was reversible. From experience, I was a teenager who uses shortened messages is SMS; such that, I take out the vowels and use acronyms all the time. But then I got so used to that style that my spelling suffers already. So no matter how long my messages are, I won’t care as long as I keep the spelling right. And I improved.
So if society chose not to tolerate the “dontcha” style of writing, there wouldn’t be any linguistic ruin. However, this is a huge challenge – because everyone should participate.
The numbers are remarkable: a college dropout has invented a time waster so popular that he stands to earn more than $24 Billion in profit when his company goes public later this year. We pay for what we consider priorities and apparently investors of the world consider our right to waste huge amounts of time a pastime worth investing in. Too bad Zuckerberg didn’t invent something that would make a more positive contribution to the world’s challenging woes.
Zuckerberg and his investors are thinking about monetary gain and how they could prolong the business, despite it being a reason why people tend to become more lazy. Just think of the hours we spend in Facebook per week – these are the hours Facebook took from our usual activities. So instead of having more time to study, they go online. Instead of doing office work, it was delayed due to Facebook. You are right, they didn’t seem to focus on having a positive contribution.
Been Facebook free for 3 months!
Funny you write this article. I deleted my account last year for the exact reasons you mentioned in your post. Although I reexamined how Facebook could help me and my career and blog. I changed my user name,I limited people I cared nothing about and I know care nothing about me nor what I am trying to achieve. I check in on my account no more than 2 times a week unless I see an urgent notification which would be worth my time to go to site. I post important photos of my family that have meaning in my life which relates to my blog posts.
Yeah, I also agree that Facebook can help our career, blog, and social life. But the exaggerated popular use of today is repelling. I hope more people use it in moderation and with authenticity the way you use it.
Two times I’ve joined and left FB. Now again I’m just a member because my sisters are asking me to. But I rarely use it.
I am going to “Beg to Differ” with you on some points.
1. Promotion of Narcissism – The short 140 character messages are on twitter and yes, I hate those… But sometimes those little snipets of information are informative.
2. Secluding Friendships. – Not necessarily. What happens if you are in NY and your friend is in LA. You can’t really go next door to say hello. Yeah, you can book a flight, fly for about 4 – 6 hours, depending if you are routed through ATL or have a straight throut, Meet up, but eventually you are going to have to go home because you have just dropped you life on the floor to fly across country. So my point is that FB is an easy way to communicate and it is a lot cheaper. And that would include gas going across town to meet a friend at the mall.
3. Meaningless Birthday Greetings my @$$ – Do you know that the only birthday greetings I received last year were on FaceBook? So, yeah, they meant something to me. And the same could go for other people.
4. Bad Effects – again… this is bogus… If people are going to be unhappy because they see “happy pictures” , they were unhappy in the first place with relationship, financial or personal issues that they need to address by any means necessary.
5. lol, HaHa, roflmao, – Sometimes people see humor where there may not neccessarily be humor. That’s a personal issue. But if something is funny, where is the problem with lol or rotflmao? Remember, one man’s funny is antohre man’s tragedy. And It’s far better to laugh with people that to be laughed at by people. Keep it in perspective.
Anyway, I enjoyed your post, I “liked” it and It’s just my 2 cents.
Have a Great Day
Hi! Firstly, I appreciate your visit and your thoughts. Thank you for being truthful and upfront.
I agree with you that social networking sites is a great avenue for disseminating information. It’s free, fast and the scope is just worldwide. That is a good thing, and I also mentioned some more positive deals with having Facebook like ease of communication and convenience of sharing.
The more focus of this post is the emphasis of negative effects. I’m not saying that birthday greetings are completely meaningless, but it’s true value is diminished. And I’m a believer of science. I’ve read those scientific papers about the effects of social networking and my judgment tells me that it is reliable and valid. You are free to believe whatever thoughts you encounter; so if your skeptic about these studies then it’s your call.
For the said reasons, all I’m saying is that, at the very least, use social networking in moderation. The main purpose of this was to make people be wary.
Great post and I agree with much of what you wrote……..I have not joined facebook because time-wise, I am bent on purpose-driven communication as opposed to social-based communication or communication just for the sake of communication……….however like most things, moderation is the key………be encouraged!………Kim
FB is just used to feed attention. Because purpose-driven communication is better being authentic. Thanks for stopping by!
I tried to move away from Facebook a long time ago. Personally, I like Google + much better but for now, Facebook is still the dominant social networking platform and if I want to stay in touch with friends then I have to subject myself to it. 😦 Quitting is harder than most people realize!
That’s true. Facebook is still dominating, so we have to conform since majority uses it and you don’t want to be left behind. I don’t have Google+, but you think that it’s better so its worth checking out
“I hope more people use it in moderation and with authenticity the way you use it.”
I agree with your words…I know one person who got through a difficult period in her life after losing one of her legs to diabetes. Going through physical therapy and engaging with her friends on FB helped her stay motivated and today is doing well and moved on to become more independent than ever.
Like anything, time management and goal setting are the key to a balanced life. Ideally, anyway 🙂
Thanks!
Really, in anything in life, it is bad to divulge yourself too much. It’s good to have something in moderation, not too limited but not too much.
Good post. And thanks for checking out Shadows.
Well stated, I completely agree. I have never had a fb account because I think it inherently destroys relationships through the emotional disconnect it creates. Funny enough, I find my friends who use fb fall into two categories: they either live on it or they hardly look at it! Any one I care to keep in contact with I do so easily by phone or email.
If you want to talk to somebody, call them. You don’t have to let everybody that your are communicating with another; because that’s what is happening in FB. And FB could really disconnect. Thank you that you also realize that because it’s so contrary to the “connect” mission of FB.
I’m not much of a Facebooker although I have an account which I use to “accept” friend invites. Just never into uploading images and updates. I guess different strokes for different folks. Thanks for visiting my relatively new blog…my one big attempt forward in social media.
I’m also not into uploading updates every single day. That’s just silly.
Well, welcome to blogging. This is more fulfilling and exciting!
I think your point at the end about “too much of anything is bad for you” is really the take away point. I don’t believe that Facebook in and of itself is bad; what’s bad is peoples’ abilities to self-monitor. I am not a huge Facebooker, but I do appreciate the easy way it allows me to connect with people (relatives & college friends) I live many many states away from. That part is a good thing. That being said, though, yes your point is well taken. Alot of people lose “real” life time to the artificial world of the computer…replying to this blog, I’m doing the same thing. 🙂
For me, it’s not really “living” when you spend time with what you called artificial world. It’s such a pity but I’m also concerned that so much time was wasted. Anyway, big thanks for replying!
Thanks for visiting my blog!
And I couldn’t agree more… this is eactly why I’m not on FB! 😉
Thanks for checking out my Pavlov’s No More: The Beginning Of The End blog. This is a very interesting blog, and I thuroughly enjoyed reading your thoughts.
Excellent post! Re-affirms the reasons my son and myself are rare users of fb and why my husband refuses to join! Well thought out ideas. Thanks for stopping by my non-socially-conscious blog today.
Who needs FB if you can have friends in real life?
I have invested shocking amount of time into Facebook – when I suspended my account people where so surprised, it was like I walked out of a funeral. I have a lot more peace, am more active in my life, and end up having more real conversations with people.
Great post.
Facebook saved me after we moved our family thousands of miles from all of our friends and family. I was on mat leave and didn’t know anyone in our new community. It helped me stay connected with old friends and start to maintain connections with new ones during a period where it was tough to get out of the house, and tough to schedule outings in between naps/feedings/whinings!
That said, I now happily ignore my facebook account on a regular basis. I’ve met some people, I’m back at work, and although I still have no time, I can squeeze in a little more face time with people rather than facebook time!
Facebook is one the the things that seems to be leading us into ” 1984″ by George Orwell. The government already has a good idea of what we are doing. Google knows even more.
Nods head in agreement 🙂
I think you may have missed a few, more substantive reasons, that people like Facebook (pun intended). Overall a great article to get people thinking.
Touche!
So many reasons to Un-LIKE Facebook in my view as well. Not to mention the insidious damage that FB can create in your life, and inside even the very pice of technology thta takes you there. FaceBook can take your computer, cell phone, anthing you access Fb with down. As in Crash. I just had my laptop in the tech shop because of it. My tech is adamant that my visits to FB crashed my laptop. And now because I accessed one time last week by cell phone I think it has also infected my phone.
No thank you Facebook. I will see and chat with my “Friends” list other ways.
I hope you will not mind momentmatters that I reblog your post.
Yet another view on Facebook. I like this bloggers points so much I had to reblog.
Reblogged this on Lady Barefoot Baroness.
It’s the be-all master of the art of time-suckage. I took a one-week-off-FB vacation… but feel myself getting slowly sucked back in. Why must I feel the need to “like” everything? and now getting “cancelled as a friend” is like the ultimate dis…
It’s definitely food for narcissism, with that said – time to starve.
cheers.
I quit FB almost 2 years ago….don’t miss it…..great article. for many FB is a feeble attempt at some sort of validation.
From all the varied comments you have received I am going to create a poll. I’d love to know how many people believe, or doubt that Facebook is insidious and a major invasion into our lives. I wonder if people ever think about where the spam in their email comes from?
“Like”-ing posts and such on Facebook is not something solely for our enjoyment. Everybody is fed by something. I’d like to know what is really feeding Facebook.
I liked this post so much I posted it on Facebook – haha! Just kidding. So I agree wholeheartedly with this article, but the reason I still keep Facebook is to promote my blog. Most of the readers don’t have blogs and a ton still come from Facebook. What are your thoughts on that?
It really is a smart move to utilize FB in promoting your blog posts. There are millions in it. But I’m glad that your purpose of using it is not the way most people use it. Cheers!
Anything we do in life, if we exercise self-control and moderation will not lead to “subtle” addiction and injuring our “being”.
Beautifully said. Sadly in the U.S. this is a rare philosophy that is practiced.
Somehow greed and materialistic things, even the idea of having the “most friends” on Fb becomes the agenda instead of finding thigs and people to enhance our lives. Not detract.
Yeah, that’s crazy. You don’t compete with number of friends. My cousin is a victim of that, befriending strangers in FB so she can have friends list to boast. How many in those lists are your true friends, really? A very minuscule fraction. In friendship, quality matters more than quantity =))
This is a really interesting discussion, I think it is important to be reflective of our use of technology. Just like with any medium people can become addicted and waste their time. My husband and I had a similar discussion in regard to watching tv or movies. My argument was that if you tend to be reflective, a seemingly “brainless” activity such as watching tv could actually cause you to use your brain causing you to come up with predictions or making connections to your life. He argued the old tried and true, that tv turns your brain to mush.
Great post, and I think that your points are spot on. I am always unsure what I am suppose to do on Facebook. I know I sure do not want to give a play by play of my life for all to see and comment on.
I’ve thought about these things before, but never in depth the way you broke it down. This is great! Seems like a really interesting blog! 🙂
Simply expressed. Pertinent points. And altogether verifiable 🙂 Some wonderful links too. I bemoan everyday, the loss of language, to the IMs and the SMS lingo that has permeated the language of people, young and old alike! Sigh.
All said and done, I am an active Facebook user. Talk of irony!
Thank you too, for the visit and “like” at my blog!