As we all know, Facebook is one of the most popular social media websites that’s being used by billions of people as we speak. Generally, the purpose of every social media website is to publish pictures, videos, or some business ideas for other people to see. It can also be used for communicating with others all across the globe. There are various privacy settings which you can increase or reduce the number of people who can see your posts, and you can even set only for you to see.
Facebook works by creating a Facebook account, which you can use to post something, add friends, like pages, watch live videos, etc. By creating a Facebook profile, you’re entering the world of social media, and it has its advantages and disadvantages. In this article, we’re going to check what are the advantages and disadvantages of Facebook, to help you in using Facebook more efficiently.
Advantages of Facebook
While many people may not like the way Facebook operates, there are still a few things they provide which we all take advantage of. Here we listed some of the most important advantages of Facebook.
1. Networking and Communication
Upon creating a profile, the user can not only post things but also interact with his friends on Facebook. This feature is called “chatting”, and that’s the feature which is located in the lower-left corner of the Facebook interface. There, the user can see which of the friends are available and communicate with each other. This is great if you have cousins, parents, or any other family member which you can’t see regularly, because communication is now a lot simpler, plus there are video and voice calls available.
As for networking, Facebook is full of people with whom you can share your opinion, thus being able to express yourself freely or even meet someone new. This leads us to the second advantage.
2. Using Facebook for Dating
Facebook is really a great place for meeting someone new by chatting and exchanging info or photos with your Facebook friends. By doing this, you can find someone for dating, whether you are male or female. Many relationships nowadays actually begin with Facebook, which can be very useful, but sometimes the opposite. This is because there are many fake profiles that can lure you with their false identity, pictures, or even gender! This is something we’ll discuss in the disadvantages part.
3. News and Information
When the first version of Facebook arrived, a newspaper wasn’t the most popular way of reading news. This is because there are many pages on Facebook related to news reporting, where you can find news about sports, the world, the state, and much more. As for the Information, there are many useful pages that offer free knowledge for those who seek deeper, which makes Facebook a versatile tool.
4. Facebook for Business
When it comes to business development, Facebook is unmatched! Facebook plays an important role when speaking about business, as today every company has its own Facebook page, where they can promote their own business. Aside from that, you can sell products or even buy products, which is now made much easier.
Users can contact the sellers or companies directly via messages and inform themselves about the aspects of the particular company or the pricing of the products. Facebook is great for advertising and even connecting with other websites, so if you have your own business, feel free to use Facebook in its promotion.
5. Entertainment
Facebook, being a social media, provides a lot of entertainment materials such as photos, videos, and such to keep the users engaged. While this can be considered as a bad thing if used in the wrong way, it still is a great entertainer for a lot of people. Especially if you are going through a tough situation in your life, chatting with someone or looking at some memes could be of great help. So, we cannot neglect the fact that Facebook does an excellent job at keeping us happy sometimes.
6. Free to Use
One of the obvious advantages of Facebook is its price. Facebook is and has always been free to use, owing to its success. Hence, the free-to-use nature has allowed Facebook to increase its reach and grow into one of the most popular social networking platforms of its time. Being free has allowed users to use Facebook for other stuff, such as marketing, campaigning, and even commercial use. Today Facebook is no longer a simple social networking website but has grown into a dynamic entity and is still free to use. You can even livestream on Facebook for free of cost.
Disadvantages of Facebook
Like the advantages, Facebook has some disadvantages too. These are the disadvantages of Facebook.
1. Facebook’s fake profiles
Of all disadvantages, we can think that this is one of the biggest disadvantages of Facebook. As Facebook offers easy profile creation, where you can just put your email, give your profile a name, and a few pieces of information, a profile can be created by literally anyone. This can lead to problems like this.
Facebook is, unfortunately, full of fake profiles and some of them can be very dangerous and deceptive. You can create a fake profile for the Facebook gaming platform, which is quite okay, but this often isn’t the main reason for that. People usually create fake profiles to stalk other persons, promote a fake business, or even some services which are usually deceiving. We strongly recommend taking care of this and being careful with whom you are communicating.
2. Privacy
Privacy is the most important thing when using Facebook. We mentioned that upon creating a profile, the user is prompted to write some info about him/her, and this is optional. You can write about your place of living, birthplace, years, hobbies, etc. but don’t give more than required, especially about the first two things.
First, because anyone can know where you are living, and second, because of people with fake profiles. The general rule which applies to Facebook usage is NOT to give much information, and usually add friends that you know from real life. If you stop and take this into consideration, you can use Facebook safely.
3. Lack of Emphasis on Facebook List Feature
Facebook List is a very important feature on Facebook, however, it isn’t used very often, but should be. Facebook List helps in keeping your status updates targeted to specific people. This means that you can use this feature to hide the status update from your children, for example, if it’s not appropriate in terms of content. Also, be sure to tick “Friends only” when you post a photo, video, or status update, as the “Public” option allows every Facebook user to see your content. You can unfriend people on Facebook if you no longer want to connect with them on the social media.
4. Facebook Addiction
It may sound strange, but there are people who are addicted to social media, especially Facebook. As we said, Facebook is a fine example of a versatile website where you can entertain yourself or learn something new, but abusing its possibilities isn’t good, neither. All the features that Facebook offers are time-consuming and will shift away the user’s focus on their real life, especially for the younger users who need to study and finish their school.
This often leads to Facebook profile deletion, which isn’t an exactly great solution, because Facebook has its benefits as we mentioned earlier. Instead, the user needs to focus on his real life, spend more time with friends or family or visit the gym for example. There is no need to spend more than one hour on Facebook daily, and remember – don’t take it too seriously, enjoy your life and use Facebook moderately.
5. Unnecessary criticism
When you post something on Facebook publicly, that means you are sending that to millions of people all over the globe. The post may not reach as many people based on the popularity of your profile. But if you check any Facebook post that has been posted publicly and with enough reach, you will notice some person criticizing or talking bad in the comment section. This may/may not bother you. But the fact is there are still people bothered by this. Leading to online word-fights and unnecessary debates.
6. Prone to Cybercrime
Historically, Facebook has remained infamous for being a hotbed for cybercrime. From fake profiles to identity thefts, users have bore witness to everything over this long period. Hackers have, time and time again, hacked into profiles to alter or steal information. Even Facebook has come under the radar multiple times due to the suspicion of selling user data and influencing geopolitical topics. Other crimes include phishing, cheating, scams, and even real-life stalking. Facebook is secure, sure, but not safe from online threats. Many users have been moving to the Facebook alternatives due to these concerns.