Facebook is huge in our generation. Everyone that is someone has it, and I know that sounds like a generation but one must understand the usefulness of Facebook. It allows us to easily connect socially and meet new people. I have personally made many friends from Facebook. While people find it awkward to go up to someone and just introduce themselves, Facebook works in a different way. I can update my status with the idea in mind that my current friends will read it...But then someone who I don't really know but have as a friend (or not) reads it, and they comment. Thus, I begin to establish a friendship with this new person and hey, introductions made easy. It gives us mutual topics of conversation.
But is this really why we joined Facebook? As an individual, most people will say that they joined Facebook to keep in contact with their friends, and because their friends joined it, but I believe subconsciously at the least, there is so much more to it.
You see, back then, Facebook gave us teenagers our own little world. It was a world where we could easily escape from adults and just be ourselves with our friends. It was our own beautiful utopia. We could escape from the stress of work, chores and life just to share things with each other. We could use it as a realm of communication between each other for anything, from arranging meet ups for a project, to arranging parties to just talking and getting to know others. We could use Facebook to catch a glimpse in to the minds of our friends, in to the lives of our friends. We could see the kind of lives that others our age live and appreciate the differences.
Facebook represented teenage freedom in it's greatest entirety, it was our world...Not this world ruled by adults in their big corporations, it was our very own utopia with just our friends. This is why so many of us found it easy to get lost on Facebook, just hanging out or checking out our friends.
But alas, times change, and the greedy corporate adults invaded our own private utopia. Facebook is no longer the same, it is no longer about socializing and having fun...All of a sudden, Facebook is all about marketing and making money. It is about online scams and selling products, about companies creating names for themselves and trying to reach out to their audience, about manipulating the masses in order to gain profit.
Think about it, when we apply for a job, we are told that our employer will check our Facebook account. Was this the true intention of Facebook? Was this what we ever wanted? No, of course not. But alas, it must happen simply because we, the targeted audience has moved to a new form of entertainment, and business have adapted.
But does this not bug you my friends? Our own little world has been ruined once again. I got really annoyed to find my entire family on Facebook, they have a right to join it, and it serves them well in their own way...But man it's like an invasion, just stomping into my room and saying "hey man, sleeping here" or something.
Facebook still exists though. I have not deleted my Facebook or stopped using it, simply because my friends use it. And for that, it serves a good purpose in keeping updated with their lives, it allows me to arrange and organize events and participate in organized events, it allows me to just generally know what's going on...
But the spirit of it has died. Facebook is no longer what it once was, it is simply a dead shell, I've noticed that the enthusiasm around it is dying out too.
I suppose it is some what ironic, since Facebook itself is a large company.
But think about the bigger picture here. We are all constantly barraged by advertisements, ushered subconsciously into buying, told how to live our lives and taught what businesses want us to know...And why? Just so that those individuals can roll around in their pile of money. Our society has become absolutely monetary, it is all that seems to matter. But really? Is money all that important? These printed pieces of paper that represent success, wealth and how happy you will be life? Are there not more important things for us as human beings to do...than to greedily get money so that we are the ones living in comfort?
You're absolutely right.
ReplyDeleteBut look at this way; Facebook replaced something before, and that was (well, as I hear it) MySpace. Likewise, after Facebook has been eaten up, there will surely be a replacement.
And there is.
Some people use Twitter (but that's pretty clogged up with companies as well), and others use Tumblr. I think that's why Tumblr has all these rules established societally (they're not written into the Terms of Use or something when you register for an account), like you can't talk about it outside of Tumblr [um rule broken. oops], you have to be accepting to everyone and anyone, etc.etc.
Apparently, the internet is huge; even limitless. These companies can invade our space, yet us teenagers will move into much more secretive places to create a world to share with our friends.
:D