Facebook can be a great tool for enhancing the interactions we have with our friends throughout our lives. It provides us with a way to keep in contact with our friends when it is impossible to physically “see” them in person, makes keeping in touch over vacations or summers quite easy, and even gives people a way to reconnect with old friends from high school or college. When used correctly, Facebook is a fantastic tool to improve the quality and ease of our various friendships in today’s world; however, I believe that some people, perhaps even most people, are taking it too far. Using Facebook as a way for enhancing friendships is great, but using it to replace actual, physical friendships is taking things a bit out of hand. Some people even have a friends list filled with people that they don’t even know; they just add them simply for the fun of it. This normally wouldn’t be a major problem, but when coupled with the fact that many people post extremely personal information over Facebook, you come up with a problem that could be turned into something much worse. In fact, I believe that it is quite possible for someone to stalk someone simply by reading the posts that they make on Facebook. To remedy this, only “friending” someone you know personally is the obvious solution. Don’t let anyone have access to all that information unless you know them and trust them completely. One of the other major problems with how people act on Facebook is them using it as a replacement for actual, physicial contact and as a personal battleground for all of their vendettas and grudges. We’ve all heard of the infamous “Facebook break-ups” that seem to leave so many people in shambles and that is simply not that way to handle such a situation. In adition, the numerous “hate groups” and blackmailing photographs described in the video are a reality and do exist. These things need to end. People are using this website for their personal fights and problems and even replacing real friendships with those through this tool; I sincerely don’t believe that this is what the creators of Facebook had in mind when it was first thought up. Such abuses of an otherwise great and useful tool need to end. Now.
Preston I agree with you. I use facebook all the time to talk to friends that I went to school and never really see anymore. Also I use facebook sometimes to talk about school work with friends or other kids that are in my class. I also think that you are right in saying that people are taking it way to far in what they are posting for status and pictures on facebook. I also like how you said how some people are adding people that they don’t know as friends just for fun. I know all my friends on facebook and don’t accept friend requests from people I don’t know. Some friends I know are friends with people to see how many friends they can get while others are friends with people that they have never even meet in person. This does put them in danger because these people can not see all their personal information. This makes it dangerous because they do not know these people or what they are capable of doing. I think that your advice of only accepting friend request from people that someone knows is a good idea. This way, people can have friends and know who’s looking at it to. I also think you are right about the hate groups. Some are harmless like for TV shows or homework while other are about people. This can be very hurtful since this is a form of bullying and can tie into the recite suicides that have been happening across the country. I believe that people should really think about what they say before they post it on facebook. If people really did think stuff through before they put it up on facebook, it would be a better and safer website to use.
Posted by: Katie Gibney | 01/08/2011 at 06:32 PM