Facebook - is it harmful?

I believe that many of you would be facebooking right now. No surprise here. Nowadays, facebook has evolved into a platform that many teenagers use for a lot of things ranging from gaming to chatting. I, personally, is also facebooking right now. Of course, i had done my work. I show concern over nowadays' teens' behaviour towards facebook, as such, is myself. The first thing we do when we got back home is to chat with friends, play games and share the latest news on facebook. But here is the issue ---> Is facebook harmful?

Many of you would think it is okay as it is not as violent as MMORPGs and it could help you interact with other people and make new friends, but we always have to face the reality. Facebook is a big distraction for teenagers and had me forgotten to do my homework several times. Facebook somehow always attracts me to move around facebook and search for new groups, games or fun stuff. I could almost never get off it once i am on it. It works like a magnet. We teenages nowadays are reaching the most important part of our lives and therefore sohuld be more focused on studies and exams instead of joining useless groups, playing boring games or randomly searching around. Our grades would drop drastically if we are addicted to facebook and spend almost all our time facebooking. People would say, games on facebook are usually passive games such as ghost trappers, fish wrangler , and the famous mousehunt. I beg to differ. There is a misconception that when teenagers "sound the horn", they would spend the 15 minutes revising and studying. This is impractical. I believe many of you have experienced the feeling when your fingers were just too itchy to get away from the tabs. During the 15 minutes, i normally would check other hunters' profiles, travel, or play other games. I would completely forget about my homework! People would normally be too excited to continue studying. They may also see thier friends playing some other games, and try it out, and would spend the whole day playing that game. The cycle repeats.

Facebook is also a massive online interaction site with all kinds of people having an account. This could lead to stalkers, interaction with strangers which may lead to cyber bullying and we, being naive and experienced, would fall into their trap and accidentally expose our passwords, allowing the people to hack our accounts and meddle with them. Applications may also hack into our account if we allow an application by giving it our passwords.

However, facebook also have its bright side. As mentioned, facebook allows us to interact with each other, forge new friendships, build new bonds and let us have fun. In my opinion, We could go facebook to interact, only if we finished our work and had revised well.

Technology- Beneficial or Harmful?

I was very intrigued when I analysed a painting in the art gallery while doing my duty.

It portrayed a family sitting together watching television. On the outside, it seemed as if they are having a family bonding time. However, after further scrutinizing the picture, i was stunned to see that actually everyone was busy indulged in their own activities such as a boy playing play station portable, a girl tapping on his laptop, the father listening to mp3 and so on and so forth. What does this show?

I feel that this painting is very relevant to our everyday lives. We are too dependent on technology to deliver our needs and our whole lives revolve around technology. Everywhere we go, there is always technology to assist us, to help us. Now, i want to ask a question. Who in secondary school, just secondary school, does not have a phone? I am a student in XXX instituition and all of my classmates have phones. I would not be surprised if 95% of my school have hand phones. And i am pretty sure that almost every household in Singapore has a computer, be it desktop or laptop.

What i am saying is this: Technology is invented to help in our everyday lives. It is too make our lives easier. However, is it really making our lives easier? Is it really useful?

I was very insistent on technology being inmensely helpful in our lives. That is, until i looked at this issue in a different perspective. I am aware that we would not "survive" until this day if not for the numerous inventions of technology.

I was shocked when i saw that picture because i was thinking of that issue while walking in the art gallery. I realised that technology is in a way harmful to our lives. In the past, there was no technology and everyone did things in traditional methods. As such, they were very united and had a strong bond. Nowadays, when teenagers like me reached home, we would more or less throw our bags onto the floor, switch on the computer, and start playing under the eyes of our parents. Last year, just because my parents were not at home for 1 day, i spend 5 hours playing games. Afterwards, i slapped myself for that. Technology, to me, had in a way blinded teens to see things in a wrong way and get addicted to playing online games. For example, Mousehunt is such a popular game in our school right now that it gave the school so much problems that they had to block facebook in the internet network around the school. Technology has benefitted us, yes, but it benefitted us too much such that teens get addicted and corrupted in a sense. In this way, we teens would get too indulged in the internet and would have no time to revise our work. In this way, it is a lose lose situation. Hand phones are the same thing. In school, there will surely have s group of black sheep who play hand phone games under the desks during lessons. In this way, they would not know what the teacher taught them and results in them getting high MSG.

Now i would move on to the next problem. Technology has also, in a way, lessen the family unity. As the art had suggested, even thought the family had settled down together to enjoy an evening, they were lost in their own worlds, indulged in their own technological devices, paying no attention to the other members of the family. This is the worst part of technology. Technology made people forget their purpose, values, etc etc. Technology made it seemed as if you are close to your friends, family, but in reality it is pulling you apart from your loved ones. That is really disappointing and bad as family bonding is an important thing and technology is making it not very possible. Moreover, you and your mum or dad will quarrel over your computer limits and will also result in a lose lose situation where none of you benefits.

Technology is making our lives easier. However, in my opinion, it is also making us too dependent on it. We people of the 21st century are too technologically advanced, resulting in us relying too much on technology and are becoming too lazy. If we continue to do this, then there would not be any one who want to do new things. The consequences would be dire.

So, let me ask you, what would be your opinion? Do you think technology is harmful? Beneificial? Or Both?