Is Facebook a blessing or a curse?

by Jacqueline O'Donnell    November 07, 2007

Facebook has become such an obsession to some that entertainers have written songs about, comedians have performed skits about it and there are groups (on Facebook of course) dedicated to those addicted to Facebook. A simple tool for networking, with a plethora of unneccessary and often annoying ways interact with your friends - is Facebook a blessing or a curse?

Until recently I couldn't see the point in Facebook. I ignored friends' invitations to join, preferring instead to stick to the "old-fashioned" and more intimate method of email communication. The trouble with email is that you need to know the person's email address first. Facebook does away with that. Now to some people there is no need to be contacting someone they don't know but for a lot of people in this modern disconnected world with so many people living further from family and friends than ever before, this is actually important.

My own case, for example, living and working overseas as an English teacher. I recently returned to Korea for a second stint of work. My first trip was an isolate lonely affair - once you got out of Seoul there was almost no opportunity to meet other foreigners. I eventually got lucky and found a few in my general area but it was often a matter of getting along with those you could meet rather than meeting people you had things in common with and becoming friends because of that. This time, again situated outside of Seoul, I found myself in a similar situation. Out of boredom I was following up on every lame invitation my friends sent me - LinkedIn, Wayn, Facebook.

But joining only fills up few minutes of the boredom so I started exploring the sites. After spending sometime sorting through the not-so-logical layout of Facebook I started to realise that there were ways to join groups of people living in the same region as me. In fact there were even groups just for English teachers in Korea, for Vegeterians in Korea and for foreigners in my own town. Suddenly I was just a click away from meeting people that I had plenty in common with and I was able to put my name on email lists to be included in upcoming events and leave notes on discussion boards to get information about things in Korea.

Suddenly, all those barriers that were here before are gone. I can easily meet people, I have an active social life that covers a wide variety of activities and I have plenty of access to people who are sharing the same experience as me and who can help me to find the services and events I need. On the flipside, Facebook is loaded with unnecessary applications that seem to need a lot of attention and offer little in return. It is difficult to ignore requests sent by friends but at the end of the day you could end up spending all your time adding fish to someone's acquarium or fighting their vampire or comparing your movie knowledge.

These things can't really be considered meaningful interaction and yet they end up taking away the time I would usually spend writing messages to friends. Some are particularly addictive - like the Scrabulous application, which I will admit is at least a little productive! So, a blessing or curse? It probably depends on how easily distracted you are! But for meeting like minded people in your area, no matter where in the world you are, t does offer some great options.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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