Whether you love it or hate it, Facebook is a global phenomenon and is therefore pretty hard to ignore in a world obsessed with social networking. Founded in 2005, Facebook grew from a small online community used by students at Harvard University, into a website with 500 million users worldwide. But what are the pros and cons of Facebook and should you join?
Facebook is like any other social networking site: creation of an online pr
ofile allows users to share information and interact with each other via the World Wide Web. However, many people feel that the uninhibited exchange of personal information is a total violation of privacy. So what are the pros and cons of Facebook and should you be concerned about your privacy?
What are the pros of Facebook?
1. Facebook is a great way to keep in touch with friends who live too far away to connect with regularly. You can have real time conversations, swap photographs, and generally stay in the loop with those who matter the most.
2. Facebook helps people to reconnect with friends and family who they might have lost touch with over the years.
3. Social networking sites such as Facebook offer excellent promotional opportunities for businesses and traders seeking to expand their cus
tomer base.
4. Facebook can also be used to promote other ventures, for example charities and non-profit making organizations.
5. Joining an interactive social networking site like Facebook can help you meet like minded people who are interested in the same things you are.
6. Facebook is a great way to waste time and it provides hours of entertainment through games and different applications.
What are the cons of Facebook?
1. Unless you adjust the security settings on your profile, you might inadvertently reveal information about your personal life to people you would prefer did not know—updating your status with news of a killer hangover following last nights exploits is unlikely to impress your boss when you have just phoned in sick.
2. Many unscrupulous individuals use Facebook to target vulnerable people, and children are particularly at risk from the attentions of predatory paedophiles. As a result of recent cases of young people coming to harm after being targeted via Facebook, many believe that Facebook does not do enough to protect teenagers from the risk of online paedophiles.
3. Facebook is a massively addictive distraction and it is all too easy to get sucked into the meaningless rubbish generated by other people with too much time on their hands.
4. Facebook applications often ask for personal details and you might end up being bombarded with SPAM and irritating advertisements once you begin using Facebook to interact with friends and family.
5. Pictures you upload on your Facebook profile could be stolen by others and used for their own gain.
6. Facebook is continually adjusting its security settings, and not without a great deal of criticism, many feel that the default settings cause a large amount of personal information to end up in the public domain, which is a huge invasion of privacy.
Sources
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/pros-and-cons-of-facebook.html