fb iz so kewl

Chances are, unless there is something remotely interesting or special about your birthday (it’s on Christmas, it’s the same as mine, my sister’s, something like that), I won’t know that it is your birthday and I won’t wish you a happy one.

What happened? Why don’t I take the time to learn people’s birthdays and engrave them into my mind anymore, like I tried to do with all of my friends in elementary school? I’d rather not waste my time trying to memorize insignificant pieces of information that can easily be found on the internet, specifically, Facebook.

That’s right, Facebook has made our social lives 100x more relevant to our lives; it has its perks, but it definitely comes with its detriments as well.

The perks of being a Facebooker:

1. We’ve found a way to keep track of all our friends, no matter how far or close they reside to you. With the exception of my Chinese relatives in mainland China, the rest of my family – sorry, the technologically-capable portion – is now on Facebook, and I can keep up with them! Same goes for friends, some of which live in France, Spain, and all over the country.

2. It’s a universal thing. Not everyone has a Gmail, not everyone has a Twitter, and almost no one has an active Myspace account anymore. Admit this to someone, and you’re probably going to find people that will admit the same.

Admit that you don’t have a Facebook, and people will question your internet access. So few youngsters don’t have a Facebook nowadays that those who don’t are often left out of the loop. At least, it certainly feels like that when people will ask if you got their party notification or the meeting update, which forced you to embarrass yourself by showing up to a cancelled meeting or missing the party of the year.

3. It’s a useful way to find out things about people that you otherwise would not have known. I suppose I wouldn’t have asked the girl in my English class about her hobbies and found out that she is indeed a successful gymnast, and I wouldn’t have known that the guy I met at summer camp next year also has a fervor for drawing.

The disadvantages of being on Facebook:

1. Depending on how liberal you are with your privacy settings and how old you were when you created an account, there may be infinite chances to embarrass you lurking on this double-edged social media website. I can’t express how comical it is to scroll back to 2009 when I posted statuses like this (legit, this is one of my old statuses):

eating a banana n my bday is soooon

In addition to this, there are dozens of awkward puberty pics and “thought-provoking” videos to mercilessly tease me for.

2. It’s very misleading:

Obviously most people aren’t going to post negative or embarassing things about themselves; in fact, some people are so restrictive with what they allow on their wall/timeline that we get a narrow perception of who they really are. We all know someone who posts heavily edited pictures of themselves or creates statuses that seem to embody a personality so completely different from who they are that their Facebook might be more than inadequate at depicting who they are. Especially when people post pictures, basing your overall opinion of someone on visuals can be detrimental in so many ways.

People have a tendency to feel bad about themselves (their physical appearance) when they see these beautiful pictures on Facebook, to which I say just this: you’re not going to post pictures of your average self; instead, you’re going to go to some obscure field or hipster-looking alleyway in the middle of nowhere with a high-quality camera, taking dozens of pictures until you find one that looks effortless yet somehow flawless. It’s misleading, yo.

3. It’s a waste of time. I can’t tell you how many hours of my life have been wasted stalking people I don’t know or DO know on Facebook, only to receive a blow to my own self esteem, only to have amassed no useful knowledge in the end. There’s a fine line between interest and addiction, and I have definitely fallen over to the side of addiction, scrolling through infinity for no apparent reason. It’s a distraction and a horrible habit that I’ve had since 7th grade.

In the end, I’ve got 3 reasons for why Facebook can be beneficial and detrimental, so I shall settle this debate the way I do most issues, especially ones that pertain to technology/the Internet:

Facebook is good, but only in rations. Overdose, and suffer the consequences. Fall prey to addiction, and find out just exactly what negative repercussions have sequestered themselves onto the habitual action of periodically checking your Facebook.

The way that Facebook impacts my life, I would say that personally, I should reduce my exposure to it and its influence on me, but I could also say that I’m already in the process of rehabilitation since my rigorous routine here at debate camp has already heavily limited how much time I can spend on Facebook everyday.

– prompted by the Weekly Writing Challenge

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