Facebook: A Waste of Time?

There has been many arguments pertaining to this issue; some may think that Facebook is never a waste of time with all the games, applications, people you can find there, while others might think that it is a pure waste of time.

The benefits of Facebook, which is what many would argue to be the merits of Facebook and why it is never a waste of time, is that it contains many entertainment utilities like games and cool applications that can show you when you die and what god tells you (Of course, they're just for the fun of it). Most importantly, it allows you to maintain relationships with one another, even after a long time. For example, some things that Facebook can do is to remember all of your friends birthday. I for one, would never be able to remember all of my friends birthday without the help of Facebook, so indeed it is helpful. Furthermore, Facebook can be said to be a "hoster" for many games as Facebook itself does not really produces games for users to play with. Some examples of this very addictive game: Mousehunt, Backyard Monsters, everyone plays them. Lastly, Facebook also allows users to create groups, which can be used for many purposes. Examples of these groups include political groups for publicizing, class groups, and many more. Thus, over more than half of Facebook's 400 million users would say that no, Facebook would never be a waste of time.

On the other hand, there is another small bunch of people who would argue that Facebook is a waste of time. Small, but yes, they do exist. The basis of their argument would be that what Facebook does is make your life lazier, more generically like what technology does. In rebuttal to my previous point on how Facebook remembers your friends birthday, many would say that the sincerity of remembering your friend's birthday would be gone with Facebook. People nowadays no longer depend on themselves to remember their friend's birthday, so what's the use of looking at the day's event before going to your friend's wall and post a "Happy Birthday"? Furthermore, some would find that Facebook is a totally immature form of platform. So what does one actually get for "poking" someone else on Facebook? What's the point of liking all those weird and totally random pages like "The awkward moment: when the Queen confuses the Royal Wedding with a fancy dress party and comes as a lemon." What then is the point of all these pages? Entertainment? Or would it more to be discriminations? Besides, if Facebook was to close down one day, all of these contact information would be gone instantly. For avid users of Facebook, can we assure that they can still live on without it? Lastly, supporters of Facebook being a waste of time can also argue that Facebook can be a very dangerous source of platform for cyber bullying as well as what some call "stalking". As people normally do not "private" their information such as their addresses and number etc., information can be seen by ANYONE and EVERYONE in the world. How dangerous would it be if informations like that of government officials fall into that of terrorists then? The consequences would be severe. Thus, the minority of Facebook users would say that Facebook is not only a waste of time, but also a threat to some.

Well, my stand in this issue is that, Facebook is a waste of time, but it cannot be argued as a platform that does no help to users at all. I, for one, am on Facebook almost all the time away from school. However, I admit that I do nothing in Facebook except for games and staring at the recent news every 10 minutes. A distraction it is, but with the help of Facebook, it has also allowed me to form discussion groups for my friends and I to discuss our project in an easier, more effective platform. Although some may say that the Window Live Messenger would be a more useful tool in this case, Facebook would be a better choice as one would have a higher chance of having Facebook as compared to MSN due to the high popularity of it, especially among teenagers.

Thus, I believe that there are many viewpoints to this issue. As long as people are able to utilize it fully to their advantage and not be taken in by its disadvantage, Facebook would inevitably remain as the best and most popular social networking site.