The 21st century may be all about science and the astounding ways it can affect our lives. However, while there is no dearth of the positive impact that science continues to have on us, there are many ways the same has proved to be detrimental as well.
Take for instance the stupendous growth of social sites in general or Facebook in particular. Facebook also has a noble theme around which it functions, that of connecting lives and building communities no matter where we live in. While that is no doubt great, too much of it can turn out to be counterproductive, as can perhaps be experienced now.
For one, Facebook would like us to be glued to our smartphones – as every other social site aspires for – for almost every aspect of our lives.
Be it interacting with our friends, sharing the latest travel pictures and experiences, making new friends, propagating business, watching videos and so on, Facebook wants us to do all of that on the site itself.
Engaging in any or all of these isn’t bad from the surface though the same might also be hiding a far uglier reality underneath. For too much time spent on Facebook might well be robbing us of our social skills since the site, by the very nature of its operations, promotes building associations in the virtual space and the same hasn’t got reflected in real life as much as the site no doubt would have liked it to be.
Similarly, spending more time on Facebook could be preventing us from devoting some quality time for our family or others physically close to us. This, no matter how outrageous it might seem, have emerged as the undesirable outcome of Facebook itself even though it goes against the every ethos the site aims to establish.
In fact, the implication of this might be more telling on the younger generation who have emerged in an age where social sites are already blooming. This is quite unlike us who are more likely to have had a more conventional childhood but have adapted to Facebook at a more matured stage.
All of this also has a negative impact on our health as well as we often suffer alone, unable to share our anguish with others. So addictive Facebook has turned out to be that we also tend to seek relief from the stress from the very site that can be considered to have caused it in the first place.
Studies have also shown that merely consuming what is being shown on Facebook could even be worse. Instead, as the site propagates, we should be engaged in more human-to-human interactions just as we would have done in real life for the medium to actually evolve as an extension of us.
Equally important would be to keep a lid on the time we would be exposed to Facebook, and achieve a healthy balance on both real life and virtual interactions. Fortunately for us, Facebook is all too aware of the negative impact the site might have on its users and is also working to alleviate those as well.
For instance, there is the suicide preventing tool which monitors the online activity of a user and detects if the same is having suicidal thoughts. Needless to say, the feature takes prompt action to deal with such scenarios, which includes directing suicide prevention experts to the user.
On the whole, Facebook isn’t exactly a bad thing though as with the age-old adage, too much of anything can be bad, irrespective of how good it might be. The same also applies to the social site as well, there is no doubt about that.
