Is Facebook Working For or Against You?

The worldwide phenomena of facebook and other social networks have created a boost in the traffic which certain sites may experience. Businesses and stores often find that this is a resource which they may use to further their advertisements at a relatively low cost. In general, advertisements on these sites work the same as any other site on the internet. But what is Facebook doing for you?

The average day of facebook use involves hours of wondering whether or not people are viewing your site, whether your content is relevant  or adding hundreds of photos online. Besides facebook, twitter and pinterest connect with facebook to create a web of communication which simplifies this process and expands on the abilities which came packaged in facebook years ago. Hours are spent just browsing the sites and pictures which others have posted. This has been one of the biggest commercial networks around where individuals show their products or interests in general at little to no cost.

Data Collection

This is all good, right? Well, for the most part. Did you know that sites collect the information that you browse in order to determine prices for you on their sites? That's right. With every picture that you click, every product you peruse, every moment you spend viewing certain content, you subject yourself to product placement and possibly higher prices. Though this may be a good thing for the avid shopper who delights in the advertisements which are specifically directed at them, you are allowing companies to discriminate against you.

In economics, price discrimination is the method which companies want to use in order to extract higher profits from you. The best way to defend price discrimination is to never allow information to be taken from you. When the companies are unable to identify individuals, they have to resort to other methods for extracting profits, which may render the individual better off in the end. With perfect information about the individual, you may inadvertently be making the wrong choice.

To defend the companies desire to know what consumers are searching for, it is necessary for marketing to know the direction which shoppers are going. Without this information, innovation would slow and development may as well.

Personal Loss

In general, it would be hard to expect that large personal loss can come from facebook. To put this into perspective, when we consider the time which goes into facebook or pinterest, may teenage girls spend more time browsing than their parents spend at their jobs, but it's fun for them. In fact, many of the things which we do on facebook generally amuse us at the least. But what are the losses which we experience?

Many of the losses to which I am references aren't those that parents often say, which is normally lack of exercise or loss of communication skills. I believe that the most significant losses are those of creativity. You are disabling the mind from expanding upon self-created ideas and you create a nest of dull thought. Another problem is the pitfall of centering your life upon someone else's. This may detract from self-esteem and actually prevent your self-development. It becomes necessary for us to know how things change and we limit our ability to focus on a single item. Though there are many people in the world who have the ability to multi-task, this is normally applied to instant messenging while using these tools.

In my opinion, I feel that more individual have facebook working against them than for them. This is compounded by the items which I have listed, but there are surely many other items which I have not covered which may change the direction which I have taken. It would be better for people to explore other things outside of facebook then wanton, sarcastic remarks which have little to no relavance on our lives.