Facebook has become a phenomenon  of the modern age. It has revolutionized the concept of Social Networking. It's not decades old, but just six years earlier we could not think of a thing called Facebook. Three college students created it to allow other students to network and meet each other. Since then it has caught on with young people around the globe. It allows people who probably never would have met each other in person to communicate, it creates new relationships and friendships, and it places distance between people who could communicate in person but instead choose to communicate online, instead. It is just another element of society that is interested in sharing information with the intimacy of a close, personal relationship. Now the trend has changed and has become a necessity.
For many of us, social networking has become a part of our daily routine. We wake up with Facebook, we have lunch with Facebook, and we go to bed with Facebook. Checking our Facebook accounts has become a routine, for not only my generation but for older generations too. Many parents and even grandparents have at least one social networking account now. Facebook has become so popular, so fast, that there are even support groups for social networking addicts-no joke! We all know why we love sites like Facebook. It’s not only a way to keep in touch with all of our friends; we can also be snoops in the privacy of our own homes. I am sure many of us have used the phrase “Well it came up on my mini feed” to hide our snoopiness from our friends. Truth is we all check out each others Facebook profiles to find out stuff like who’s going out with whom, the latest drama between friends, and of course to check out the latest pictures of people on our “Friends List”. For few people, chatting and messaging with there friends on Facebook had become a huge problem. In the beginning, they would  be online for as little as 20 minutes a day, but then those minutes grew into a couple of hours on weekdays and sometimes as long as six hours. No it has become kind of a "fantasy land" where people can make up anything they want to command attention, they can live an alternative life if they choose, and no one is the wiser. The fact that people accept these profiles at face value, and choose people as friends based on these profiles says a lot about our society. For all our worries about information and identity theft, people are still seemingly naive when it comes to sites like Facebook, where they post intimate details with no thoughts to the consequences.Many of the Facebook users say they were neglecting important areas of their lives due to spending too much time using the Web site.
As I have the experience of using the Facebook some people are always there to seek attention from others you have a ton of these friends and you know exactly who they are. These are the types who always leave status’ that are just begging for a reaction whether its praise, agreement, well wishes, concern or any other type of communication. Basically, they have a need to be loved and they’ll stop at nothing to get it. These are the types who go on vacation and brag about how great everything they are doing  “Sitting by the Dal side in Srinagar and eating a barbeque”, “Going through a rough patch at home and one of the best status I have found  from my friend was ”acheee”  and believe me it was flooded with comments of concern. Not only this, girls get tons of comments for good morning and men suffer to get a comment on a thoughtful status. The irony is now the network has more fake accounts than the originals and one never knows who is keeping eye on whom so better watch for them.
Although, there is nothing wrong with using the site and checking up messages or conversing with a friend, but people should restrain  using Facebook at work, in class, offices, and such places. There is more to life than Facebook. I think people should be doing better things than spending hours on Facebook such as volunteering or doing something productive. There is a need to convert it from  gossip portal to a platform for a serious discussion.

Lastupdate on : Tue, 11 Jan 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Tue, 11 Jan 2011 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Wed, 12 Jan 2011 00:00:00 IST