Facebook - Boon or Curse . Do's and Dont's.

2004, it was the time when my batch was in 8^th std. hardly countable guys from our area knew about the World Wide Web (www). In 2006, WWW users grew in numbers and some more kids started knowing about yahoo messenger and Google. The word “Chatting” came into practice. I went for Higher Secondary School. 2007-08 was the time when we came to know about famous social networking site “Orkut” – A Google Inc. Product. Simultaneously “YouTube” was being the biggest hit again by Google Inc. For some kids like me, the smallest possible pocket money we got was a hope for getting one hour in an Internet Café. Literally I spent hours in my favorite café on my favorite corner computer near the AC. Orkut and YouTube were driving me crazy. Massages, Scraps, Testimonials, Profile visits had become my curiosity factors making me come again and again. I found Orkut a best way to go out of my area. To chat with unknown people, to check what’s happening with them. 2008 was the peak time when people started using Orkut and most of my friends already had an Orkut account.

The scenario continued till mid of 2009 when I was admitted to a Bachelor’s College. And then came a new element in our dictionary. Its name was “FACEBOOK”. An invention of a Howard University college guy. Facebook was completely different from Orkut. Unlike Orkut’s many colored themes Facebook was only available with default Blue theme. Facebook was launched in 2004 and had 100 Million users in 2008. Hundreds of people were joining Facebook on each second. New users joining rate is still continuing except they are more than thousand users per second now, from all over the globe. Slowly people started migrating from Orkut to Facebook and till the start of 2010, almost everyone had permanently switched to Facebook. Clean theme, simple profile format, secured Inbox, Increased security settings was attracting more and more people.

Facebook was improving day by day. Every now and then Facebook is adding features to the existing version. Timeline , Advanced privacy settings , Timeline movie , Emotions , Hashtags , customized chat box , integration with Skype for free unlimited video calling , Mobile chat support , comment replies , Photos and smileys in comments , more Fan Page options , page insights , ‘View as’ option , Facebook messenger apps , chat heads , customized availability feature to chat ,  and free audio calling from messenger to messenger, Audience based Ads , etc. These are all the recent changes made by Facebook in order to keep it stronger, larger and secure.

The same Facebook is now world’s largest online community, largest social networking site ever created in the history of WWW. Whose Alexa rank is 2 (Alexa is a website which gives ranks to the other websites according to its popularity in terms of number of visitors. GOOGLE has Alexa Rank 1). It’s becoming the world’s fastest E-Media.

Technical stuff apart, every now and then we are getting news about couples who met each other on Facebook, they chatted for months, Met in their cities, Started liking each other, Got engaged, and finally Married. Old friends who never dared to talk you in college gets in touch with you through Facebook. You visited a profile, found his hobby/interest similar like you, He is an Open guy and he lives in same city, BINGO!! Go catch him. Discuss your hobbies/interests face to face, Share knowledge and there you go, a perfect use of Facebook!! From best friends to Life partners Facebook can help us being in touch with the right person as long as you know that you are talking to a Non-Fake profile.

Facebook is actually a best gift we can get from Technology. There are “n” number of advantages of using Facebook as long as a healthy, informative and peaceful conversation or interaction with other people is concerned.

1)      It’s because of Facebook that we can go out of our area and talk with people, It is no wander that in Facebook, you can find anyone of your interest in the world, add him to your friends list, know in detail about his interests, hobbies and activities, chat with him, learn from him about his skills, have video conversation with him n so on. This all can happen in just matter of hours.

2)      You can reach amongst the people living at other end of the world who are far away from you. You can deliver your skills and arts to thousands of people who have same interests. You can get suggestions and comments from them hence improving your skills in the way people want it like.

3)      You can be in touch with your oldest school mates or city mates to whom you never met after your schooling. You can keep yourself updated with their smallest activities, Life events, Success, and experience stories.

4)      You can create groups, chat with them, plan visits, meets or trips with them. Hence getting a chance to develop a network of people you like to talk with.

5)      You can publish your views on any topics and get replies from your friends.

6)      You can post what is happening with you in your life and get to know about others.

7)      You can go for Marketing of your smallest possible business with the help of Pages and Ads. You can even choose the type of Audience to whom you want to show your ads.

8)      You can spread your smallest piece of important information all over the globe just in few hours.

In Short, Facebook has given us all the ways to stay in touch with our close ones or the ones whom we like to talk every now and then.

            Apart from the advantages listed above, Facebook also includes some disadvantages. We don’t use the Facebook as I explained it above. We are sitting back hours on chair in front of computer or always scratching our phone to check Facebook each second. We post photos and posts and wait for likes and comments, we do not do productive things. We just start counting our Facebook friends and stay happy in it. We don’t go to friend’s house and discuss with him. We don’t roam around with him and enjoy the time. We forget having a face to face argument with people. We start living in a virtual world where people can just like and comment your post. You can hardy make anyone to come and help you in real life. Because they all belong to virtual world. Don’t share each and every stuff about your personal life unless it is really giving a nice massage to others. Don’t spend time on Facebook unless you are not posting or reading something really productive.

Apart from these situation other serious disadvantages of Facebook are

1)      Anyone can create fake profile.

2)   Anyone can get to know more details about anyone as long as the user is sharing his    personal information.

Few examples when Facebook irritates most of us:

1)      Games (candy crush, Farmville, etc.), Other Apps, Birthday calendars requests.

2)      Irrelevant People sending you requests again and again.

3)      Frequent Pokes

4)      Stupid status updates from useless people.

5)     Posts like “Click like if u agree/click share if u agree” , “click like and comment to see  the magic”, “If u love your father/mother/god/sister share this post”

6)      Useless comments of people on our status when they misinterpret your line. When they didn’t understand what you wanted to say.

How to recognize a fake Facebook profile:

1)      The account is opened recently.

2)      The account has a really cute girl’s photo who can never take interest in you.

3)      You do not have any mutual friends in you and that profile. If you have mutual friends then confirm the person by talking your friend.

4)      Nobody has commented over any of his/her posts. Or there is no real conversation on his wall.

5)      All the people from his account belong to different location who do not have any connection between each other.

6)      And lastly, from the reason he told for his approach to you can give you a hint about the profile being fake.

In order to maintain your profile safe and to use this tool effectively, here are some DOES and DONTS

1)      Do – Keep Your Password Strong.

             Don’t – Share your Password with anyone.

2)     Do – Apply privacy Settings to your account. Apply privacy to Your Profile Photos and            Particular Posts.

 Don’t – Keep your Birthday, Email Id, Phone Number, Family Member list Visible to “Everyone”.

3)      Do – Ask Identity to anyone before adding him or her to your list

             Don’t – Add unknown people just by looking there profile picture.

4)     Do – Click on only trusted links.

Don’t – Click to any link which is new to you. Don’t provide your credentials to any site if it is asking you, your Username or Password to show the content. It can be a phishing attempt.

5)     Do – Check the Web address clearly if it is “www.facebook.com” only.

Don’t – Provide your credentials to any site just because it looks like Facebook Login Page. It can a fake page attempting for Phishing.

6)      Do – Check the apps in detail before giving it access to your profile.

            Don’t – Give access to any third party app unless it is launched by a trusted site.   

7)      Do – Keep changing your password.

 Don’t – Use simple Alpha or Numeric password. Better to keep an Alphanumeric Password with Special Character.

8)      Do – Select Maximum Security Questions.

 Don’t – Choose easy and common question answers that anybody can guess about you.

That’s it …keep Facebooking…keep getting and spreading good information…

Facebook is really a nice tool if you use it nicely

Special thanks to,

Mr. Mark Zuckerberg

And

Facebook Team.