It is well known that communication is one of the basic requirements of human beings. A long time ago our ancestors used diverse methods of communication using sound, action, animals and the print media before Sir Alexander Graham Bell’s fabulous invention of the telephone.
However, still developments to the existing technology continue to govern the generations.
Facebook, being the most widely used communication medium within as well as between countries throughout the world, has now become one of the necessities of an individual.
If you get into a public transport, wait at a bus halt for a bus, or peep into a tuition class while the teacher is away, you could estimate the percentage of Facebook users in the country. It has neither age nor time barriers, so that it can swallow up even the whole lifetime of an individual.
Youth tends to move along with the trend. They need not be alone anywhere. It is one of the major persuasions to enter into Facebook.
The user-friendly website steals lots of his/her valuable time even out of his/her awareness and injects an addiction followed by a curiosity that ends in the bad habit of forgetting the place where they are, while using it.
Facebook surely has plenty of ‘good’; taking time to describe it will be of no use as that is well-known among the public; the ease of chatting, media sharing, video calls, publication of news and its availability throughout the world are important aspects.
But, sharing something unworthy that gets into one’s mind with a photo attached, followed by hundreds of people wasting their time to comment or have a look at it, would sound silly.
Besides, it is by the merest chance that whatever is shared becomes really important! Can this be thought of as the aim of communication?
I am not criticizing enjoying or having fun, but addictive actions are bad. Time is said to be as valuable as gold and irreversible; we must make good use of it.
People used to have hobbies like singing, dancing, listening to music, reading, watching movies, etc.
Do you think any of the Facebook users do not have at least one of them as their hobbies? They actually do. The result is, their leisure is used both, for the particular hobby and to scroll up and down on their profile walls or chatting.
This would probably extend their leisure time to limit the time for useful things, such as education, their career or even their family.
Moreover, if the individual continues to use Facebook at night, it would consume his/her sleeping hours which might end up in mental disorders, migraine or a less efficient tomorrow.
Leaving time aside, what about safety? Both, public and private passengers and pedestrians forget everything while they are engaged with the Facebook on their way.
They will not take vehicle sirens or other surrounding information into account until they get knocked down by a vehicle. The accidents can happen even within their own homes by such carelessness.
Nothing is needed more than is actually necessary. The use of everything has to be limited.
Addiction is bad, resulting in various outcomes. The ability of the website to addict humans easily has to be understood. If you are strong enough to take control of yourself to use it wisely, no worries.
But, beware of the poison. The poison that tempts more than two-thirds of students in a classroom to just scroll up and down on their profile walls while they get totally distracted from the lecture, the poison that draw family members apart, the poison that breaks relationships due to unfaithfulness or suspicion, the poison that makes about ninety percent of undergraduates over stressed due to lack of time to cover their studies before exams, the poison of unwanted people that try to get along with you and cause trouble in numerous ways and the poison that would one day blame your soul about all the valuable time that you could have made use of to win your life.
If you can manage this situation, it is the best that can happen, of all the words written above.
But if time seems insufficient for your daily work or if you are at risk of any of the above mentioned disasters, just try to limit the hours spent in this obsession.
If by any means, you happen to lose or deactivate your account you will understand what I have understood. I have confidence in my ideas frankly because, I write this with my own experience as an undergraduate aged 22 that daily travels.
S.N. Ranatunga