Facebook is evil

I was having a drunken conversation with a friend last night, who let me know in no uncertain terms that he thought Facebook was evil and should be destroyed. I stuck up for the application, because I think it’s a great way of being able to remain friends with all those people whom you would never bother to pick up the phone for to actually speak to them. Instead, you can give them a ‘poke’ and that’s your friendship sustained for another six months.

My friend stated that he hated Facebook because it can give rise to unpleasantness, and ‘no good can come of it’. I sort of get where he was coming from. From a personal perspective, Facebook has been quite positive, but it’s true that I’ve been privy to unpleasantness when venomous people write things about you which you would be much better off not reading, and in a normal situation you would never have access to. While it didn’t affect me, I did report it to the police. There’s nothing quite so humiliating as sitting in a police station explaining that you’ve been threatened…on Facebook. Cue lots of eye rolling and sniggers.

So, the positive things about Facebook are that it lets you get in touch with people who were never good enough friends with in the first place to maintain healthy contact. Right.

Another positive is that it is so full of stupid applications and games that you could waste your entire life sitting staring at the screen growing virtual carrots and baking fake cakes. Right.

And you can share all your embarrassing photographs which would never normally be circulated in the public domain, from nights out you would rather forget…OK.

On the negative side? It’s a waste of time, addictive, puerile and stupid. Facebook enables you to take lots of questionnaires that are riddled with poor grammar, telling you of your favourite swear word and how old you will be when you’re going to die. It also encourages us to give out a wealth of personal information which can then be harvested easily and used against you.

The problem is, I absolutely love it. I’m signing off now because my virtual fish need feeding, I have crap crops to plough and I believe there is some Mac and Cheese awaiting my clicking abilities. Given that George recently ate my second mobile phone in as many weeks, it’s probably a good thing that I have alternative ways of keeping in touch with people.

And don’t even get me started on the value of blogging.