11-51am
I’ve wanted to write about this for a while. Facebook is such an interesting platform on 
which to watch the lives of others unfold. A work colleague once said, “it’s a subtle form of voyeurism”. She was absolutely right, although these days there’s absolutely nothing subtle about it. People stick it all out there. There are a number of things I’ve observed about what I see and read on Facebook. I’ve thought about the pros and cons of Facebook and come up with the following…
PROS
1. Facebook Is Helpful In Documenting Your Life
In an age where there’s not always time to keep a private journal, take photos, develop them and put them in a scrapbook, Facebook is a wonderful way of keeping a log of all the good things that happen in your life. It’s easy to forget what dates you were where or what happened when, but when you have photographed them and put them up on FB, they are always there for you to refer back to.
2. Facebook Often Focuses On The Good In Your Life
When you look at FB, you see all the good things that are happening. If you are a regular poster on FB, generally you will post nice stuff that’s happening. Your ‘check-ins’ at airports, restaurants and hotels reminds you that your life is good. You’re on the move. Just doing that makes your life feel significant, vibrant and abundant. There are tough times in life, so if these kind of posts are going to enhance your sense of self-worth, that’s not a bad thing. It’s just when they are over-done that they become negative. There is a line between just showing where you are at and ‘boasting’ about how fabulous your life is.
3. Facebook Helps You Keep In Touch
One of the best things about FB is staying in contact with friends. It’s great to know what’s going on in their lives and to keep up to date with them. It’s also a way to know if they are struggling and help them in necessary. It’s great to join support groups and be helped by a group of strangers who have the same interests as you. I love the social aspect of it – knowing everyone’s news without having to leave my own home is great!
4. Facebook Keeps Parents In Touch With Children
It should be mandatory for every young person who is on Facebook to be friends with at least one of their parents. As a mother, that’s why I joined Facebook back in 2007. Stacey was not yet 20. David was 16. Boy oh boy, I got onto FB so fast to find out what was going on in their lives! You can glean a lot from a FB page – who are their friends, what are their likes and dislikes, what they are saying. It gives you insight into their lives out of the spotlight of Mom and Dad.
There may be others, but those are the main Pros that come to my mind.
CONS
1. False Happiness.
Think about it….when did you last see a baby bawling his eyes out of Facebook? I had a rather strange experience. I saw a young child I usually see smiling on Facebook, crying in real life. I didn’t know he could! People don’t post pictures of the hard times. They post new cars, new homes, new clothes, new relationships, wedding photos and all the good times they are having. While there are many great things that happen in life and I believe in focusing on them and being grateful for them, a lot of hard things happen as well. Facebook can be a bit of a skewed view of true life. I believe I need to be careful of the life I portray. I remember seeing a spectacular holiday picture and thinking ‘Wow! That must have been a fabulous holiday.’ When I spoke to my friend, turns out what was going on behind closed doors wasn’t quite as pretty. As I won’t put a whole lot of sad stuff on FB, I won’t put on endless amounts of excessive happy stuff.
2. Envy
This is something I am very aware of as an outcome of all the amazing stuff that some Facebookers see others doing and can’t do themselves. It’s the pits to see others having all the fun when you can’t. It was one of the surprising things about my holiday blogs. I thought, (maybe pridefully) that people would want to follow me when I went overseas last year. I was giving them some idea of what the holiday looked like and some of the challenges I faced and the highs we had. I saw blog stats drop. Truth be told, they don’t want to SEE the holiday – they want to GO on the holiday! Seeing endless holiday pictures, even on this forum (which gets a fraction of the hits that my FB page gets) just made them jealous. Not fair! Of course, there were people who loved following my blog, feeling they were on the journey with me, but lots of others saw one or two and didn’t come back. The pain of seeing someone else live your dream is great.
3. People May Take Something The Wrong Way
Oh dear! The written word holds in it’s power the ability to be misread and misunderstood. Sometimes plain black and white fails to carry innuendo correctly; it doesn’t always convey the happy tone intended and may come across negatively or sarcastically. Regularly, cell phones are being used to comment and a response may sound abrupt. It can lead to all sorts of misunderstandings and can ruin relationships. Many many times, I start to comment on someone’s status and backspace to delete and leave. You can’t see the smile on my face and the twinkle in my eye when I write on your status. It may be intended to be ‘tongue in cheek’ and come across quite insulting, completely unintentionally of course, but that’s why I won’t write it. The answer is to to do what I try and do. My comments are going to be simple and hopefully positive, so that you can’t miss what I’m trying to say.
4. Social Media Faux Pas
There are a few dos and don’ts when it comes to social media.
I will never use my FB status to send a message to an unnamed friend, hoping that he/she reads it and catches the hint. I don’t make snide remarks about others in the hope that they will pick up that I’m referring to them. I’ll put up what is helpful and uplifting and I’ll put up what is clean fun. Don’t use Facebook or any other social media to be vindictive or vent your anger towards a Facebook “friend”. The written word is powerful and can contribute to someone’s life or it can contaminate. Don’t swear on FB. I once was waiting for a delivery – it was very late in coming and I wanted to phone him to find out where he was, but didn’t have his phone number. I knew both his name and that of the company so armed with those two pieces of information, I searched for him on Facebook and found him. I was shocked at what I read! He was a manager at a company, yet his profile was laden with foul language and gross innuendo. Not good. Watch what you put on your profile.
5. Facebook, The Waste of Time
How easy it is to get sucked into what’s happening on your news feed…reading statuses or most times looking at endless photos of the lives of others. There have been many times that Facebook has distracted me – taken me to another world – and then suddenly I ‘wake up’ and realise I’ve been wasting so much time on what?….meaningless stuff! It’s something to guard against.
6. The Dark Side of Facebook
When was the last time you looked at your Facebook mail ‘other’ account. Here’s a snapshot of mine. Men I’ve never met or heard of sending me complimentary messages…
This is where you can caught up in a web of deceit and lies. Men preying on vulnerable women in the hope of fleecing them of their money under the guise of love and friendship. They connect with women under false names. If you respond, they build up a relationship with flattery and kind words. After a time, when they have gained your trust, suddenly they will have an ‘urgent health issue’ or a ‘dying baby’ or some other emergency. They are desperate for cash, needing, ‘just $100″ to help them with their problem. Thousands of women across the world have been taken in by these charlatans – confidence tricksters who set about to swindle you from the get-go. Their Facebook profiles may show handsome men with impressive jobs from wealthy countries, while behind the scenes they have taken some photo off a model website and constructed a false FB account in order to solicit. Ladies, you probably have something like this in mind when you start interacting with these men…
When in actual fact, this is the guy you’re chatting to…
You have GOT to be careful!
I wrap up with a verse from the Bible. Philippians 4:8
Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things.
Keep the smile going.
God bless you!
In His Grip,
Helga xx 🙂