Facebook is Great, or Is It?

Paul: Hi, I've not seen you in a long time. How have you been?
Pearl: I'm doing good, thanks. Been pretty busy with work actually.
Paul: Oh, really? I thought you've gone MIA.
Pearl: Nah, still here though it's not the best place to be. Look, I've got to run ok?
Paul: OK, sure. By the way, do you have a Facebook account? I'll add you in.
Pearl: That's great.

People, what has happened to the conservative way of exchanging business cards and telephone numbers? The former is purely for business interactions, no more for social relationships - except perhaps in Japan. Exchanging handphone numbers used to be the norm, but now we'd add in Facebook as well.

Just like the iPad fad, Facebooking has become too popular as well; it has become a social networking phenomenon the past few years. It's so easy to set up an account that even an 8-year-old (or younger) could create an account on his own, and I'm not exaggerating.

I've never delved much into Facebook until the past two years when I started connecting to friends, and I've been actively using it in recent months to communicate with my students and long-lost buddies (if they're still alive, that is). I've noticed that the Facebook administrators have been updating the site with more features which enable users to get connected even easier. However some new features actually expose unsuspecting users to newer threats. We are now concerned with not only privacy invasions and identity thefts, but also criminal acts like virtual stalking that could possibly lead to abduction. Yup, I'm talking about this craze of using a new feature known as "Check-in" where Facebook is able to track your location (because you allow it to do so) thus allowing you to keep in touch with your friends, and telling them where you are. It works like a GPS. The only benefit I see is that your daddy would at least know where you are, if you're still in possession with your phone by then.

Watch this video clip, and hope you'd make the right move. For me, I'd just stick to what Facebook is meant to be used as - a social networking tool, not a tool to announce my whereabouts every second of the day.