Facebook was created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg as a way to help people connect with one another. Facebook has grown tremendously since this time as many people are able to use this social media site and connect with people all over the world. Facebook provides a great opportunity for many individuals and businesses alike. You are able to share information with the people you are friends with along with pictures and many other things. Facebook also has an instant messenger tool which allows you to have real-time chats with your friends that are on the site. However with all the great features comes some bad ones as well. Facebook like any other site has it’s fair share of pros and cons. Here are the pros and cons of facebook that you need to be aware of.
Privacy
When you are dealing with the internet, nothing is ever really private. When you post pictures to facebook they end up becoming the property of facebook. You can delete them one day but in the end, facebook will always have them as they are loaded into a database. There are also no rules on who can join the site. Sure Facebook does remove convicted felons if they find them but a lot of people make up false accounts and can easily prey on young children and others. Facebook can only protect you as much as you want to be protected. It is hard to protect people that put all of their information on the social media site like their address and other contact information.
Facebook does have a privacy settings tool you can use to try and protect yourself as much as possible. This is where you go in and click on your account settings and then privacy settings to block anyone that you don’t know from getting access to your page. When you do this people will only be able to pull you up as your name and profile picture. Your friends can see everything that you have or you can even limit their access if you don’t want them posting on your Facebook page.
Time Waster
Since Facebook not only allows you to spend hours browsing through pictures of your friends and other things, it can be a big time waster with games. Many companies have outlawed facebook in the office as they found their employees spent more time playing Farmville than actually focusing on their work. Facebook can take up a lot of time so you do need to limit yourself when you are on it so you don’t waste time.
Connections
Facebook allows you to hook up with all your old friends and many new people as well. If you don’t like to use online dating sites, Facebook may be the solution you want as you can meet someone through a friend’s profile. It makes it a little easier to try online dating, plus it is free.
For families that don’t live close, facebook is one of the best ways to connect. You will be able to share your information with your relatives that may not be able to fly home and see their grandson’s birthday and so forth. It is a great way to still stay close even when you don’t get to see each other that much.
Final pros and cons of facebook
Since there are a lot of areas to cover, here are some of the basic pros and cons of facebook that you need to consider:
- You can connect with people all over the world
- You can share music, pictures, and videos with your friends
- You can promote your job or your services to others
- You can connect with other individuals that share the same hobbies and things that you do
- You will get a lot of spam and friend requests, making it annoying
- The news feed can become crowded with information that you really don’t care about
- Anyone can see your information unless you change your profile settings