The Problems With Facebook

I have been using Facebook for almost 3 years now and I use it for keeping in touch with friends and family and for promoting my blog. I have a handful of friends - just over 30. I check it several times throughout the day but I never stay on it for very long unless I am posting a few pictures. I comment on other people's status updates once in a while. I began thinking the other day how Facebook must affect the workplace and how many employees waste time on it. I have been out of the workforce for 6 years so Facebook wasn't even around at that time. I do remember though how many people would take personal phone calls and talk for long periods of time or surf the net for personal reasons. This would annoy me.

Another thing that bothers me about Facebook are those people who have to give 10 status updates a day and sometimes they get way too personal in their updates. I have ended up hiding some people's status updates from my news feed. There is also the issue of privacy and how much of your personal life that you should post online. I post a few pictures here and there of my kids so that my family can see them. I'm sure Facebook is an amusement park for hackers and email scammers. I have nightmares of getting a virus or having my account hacked.

I also have the habit of deleting "friends" who I haven't communicated with in over a year or who do not answer emails that I send to them. Is that bad? I always feel guilty after doing so but I like to keep my profile uncluttered. You always have to wonder if they really notice that you removed them, especially people who have hundreds of "friends". I am probably considered a boring "friend" on Facebook because I do not post a lot of updates or share a lot about my personal life.

It is my guess that Facebook has also caused relationship problems. You can easily connect with old flames and there is probably a lot of flirting going on. People may also choose to vent about their spouses online. Gossip can spread like wildfire and chances are any type of misbehaviour will get back to a spouse. There are also people who are addicted to it and ignore their family and responsibilities because they would rather be in "Facebook world" than in their own life. I know a few people like this.

I do like Facebook to market my blog as I do have a fan page. I think it is a good marketing tool for reputable companies. Again, you have to be weary of scams when joining groups or becoming a fan of something.

At this point, I will remain a vigilant user of Facebook as a means to keep in touch and to reach out to my blog readers. I will not use it to play games, upload weird applications, or to choose funny staus updates. I don't mean to offend anyone that likes to do this on Facebook. It's just not my personality or how I want to spend my time.