how did facebook change your lives?

By Ben Geleris

Facebook has revolutionized the way people connect with each other. Long-lost friends can find old classmates to reconnect; anyone can see the latest school gossip; relationships can be made official; and anything you want the world to see can be posted. But, is this website really helping us?

Parents consistently talk about how “back in the day,” they did not need the internet to stay connected. They were perfectly satisfied with seeing their friends at school and then waiting 12 hours to talk to them again.

Facebook is always open and completely free. When used responsibly, Facebook can be extremely useful and a great way to connect with friends.

Although Facebook can be beneficial, it can also be harmful. If used inappropriately, Facebook can affect personal relationships, make one more susceptible to stalkers and even ruin chances of getting into a choice college. If someone spends all of his time updating his profile page, then he or she will only understand how to connect with another human being over the internet. Additionally, he or she will begin to neglect other important things like homework.

He or she can ruin his or her chances of getting into a good college if a friend decides to post a picture of him or her doing something illegal like, drinking alcohol. Even if he or she removes this tag, some colleges bypass this action by paying companies to go on Facebook and find untagged pictures of accepted applicants.

On another note, if a person is responsible with his Facebook page and ensures that nothing negative is posted on his page, he or she still has no control over what friends may put on their pages. A new Facebook layout allows five of one’s most recently tagged pictures to be seen by anyone who comes across one’s page friend or stranger. Although this setting can be changed, this default option is problematic for the user.

Facebook has damaged our generation. Too many people spend too much time on Facebook and people are able to easily see everything about a person’s life: the good and the bad.