Over the years, Facebook has gained popularity and became the No.1 social networking website on the entire internet. Facebook is addictive in many ways, as well as it has many advantages as well. Also, recently, Facebook has received so much negative name due to its business-minded privacy policies. So, in short, like any other platform or service out there, Facebook also has merits and demerits. Even the biggest social media network is not an exception to the disadvantages.
Previously on the website, we have thoroughly analyzed the good and bad of several services and products such as Bitcoin, Computers, Mobile Phones, etc. Now, we are going to do the surgery on the social media giant and bring out things. So, let’s have a look at Facebook advantages and disadvantages.
Advantages of Facebook
1. The world is a Small Place
When you use Facebook, you feel the world is a small place. You can connect the persons in nook and corner of the world. Facebook has many interacting options built-in. The messenger, sharing opinions, giving likes and other interactive emos, making friends, and following are the major advantages of Facebook. Facebook offers a minimal effort to find old friends. If you lost your best friend contact, you can find them on Facebook with ease. It can literally work as a person finder, you can connect your friends, loved ones anywhere in the world.
2. Powerful Networking Features
Undoubtedly Facebook is a powerful networking platform. It is used for connecting colleagues, friends, like-minded people, and anyone related to your field. As a blogger, I connected with several blogger friends on Facebook. Most of them I haven’t met in real life, however, we are interacting with each other for sharing doubts, getting business and making a lifetime friendship online. Based on your profile details, Facebook gives the best people suggestions to connect them. No matter which field you belong, Facebook makes easy to find the like-minded and same profession people around the world.
3. For Brand and Business Development
These days we are seeing many Facebook pages with the brand image. Companies are taking advantage of Facebook tools to create a perfect business page to get more followers and clients. It is one of the best advantages of Facebook for business people, bloggers and other persons who want to grow their followers and clients.
4. Apps Integrations
We know Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram are owned by Facebook. These apps are connected with each other and we can use them for easy messaging options. Facebook allows various advertising options for business owners to get more followers to their brand pages. If you create a boost post feature on a Facebook post, it will be served on Messenger and Instagram as well. It works as a combo package when you advertise on one network, you will get triple benefits.
5. Get Latest News Around The World
Facebook is useful to get the latest updates from all news channels around the world. Its real-time updates from popular blogs, news channels, and other news sources are helpful to stay updated with the latest happenings around the world. Not only news, but Facebook is also helpful to get the latest updates from a particular product or service. When you like a brand page, you will get the latest updates on your Facebook wall whenever they publish a post.
6. As a Gaming Platform (Facebook Gameroom)
Facebook is very popular for built-in games. If you have a Facebook account you can play a ton of games which are offered by Facebook. A very popular name in Facebook gaming is Farmville. There are many games available on Facebook most of them are addictive and lets you play with Facebook friends. Some popular games include Mafia Wars, Word Challenge, Zynga Poker, Candy Crush Saga, and 8 Ball Pool. Facebook Messenger supports gaming while chatting, it is an interesting feature to kill boredom.
7. As a Dating Platform
With the help of online platforms, dating becomes much easier these days. With the help of apps like Tinder, OkCupid, people are finding their ideal partners around them. Facebook also one of the best dating platform for singles.
All you need to check the person profile fake or not before offering a date. However, the dating over Facebook is coming under disadvantages category, but if you manage to find the real or fake person behind the profile it would definitely come in advantages category.
8. As an Image Sharing and Saving Platform
It is an interesting use of Facebook to share and save your images online. You can use Facebook to store your images for free and it replaces the Cloud platforms if you use them for saving your photos. However, there is one downside of Facebook, the images you upload to Facebook will lose the image quality. But if you want to save money on the Cloud storage for saving your images, Facebook is a great option.
9. Rich News Information Source
As we know all brands and news agencies using Facebook to promote their latest updates to the users. So, Facebook can be used as a rich news information source for daily latest happenings around the world. You don’t need to open BBC or CNN websites to follow their updates, just like their Facebook pages that’s it. All the latest news is pushed to your Facebook wall.
10. Free Video Calling
Facebook offers free video calling option to its users. So, location is not a barrier anymore. You can make video calls from anywhere in the world. All you need is a Facebook account to you and as well as to your call receiver.
11. For Hassle Free Signups on Other Websites
Services providing websites put the signup process in order to use their services. The manual signup is a time taking process, we have to enter email, name, address and other related information in the fields. If you have a Facebook account you can use it for easy signup process. Just click on the Facebook option in the signup box to skip the manual signup method. It saves a lot of time and as well as it is easy to log in whenever you want to use their service.
12. For Remembering Birthdays and Other Important Events
Yet another use of Facebook is remembering friends and other important persons birthdays. Yes, Facebook shows notifications of your Facebook contacts birthdays. It is one of the best options to remember the important dates in your life. Also, you can use Facebook to get notified for other important events. You can set this option to enable from Facebook account settings.
13. As a money-making platform
The way of earning is much changed in recent times. In this digital era, it is possible to earn money from a Facebook page. Yes, if you have a professional looking page with decent followers count, the advertisers will approach you to promote their products on your Facebook page.
Disadvantages of Facebook
1. Facebook Privacy
Facebook privacy is the most concerned factor in recent times. As we see, Facebook is in many controversies over its loose Facebook policies. The most popular one is the Cambridge Analytica data scandal. It comes in limelight in early 2018, it was revealed personal data of millions of Facebook users personal data without their consent and used it for political purposes.
Facebook has been listening to your conversations since 2014. Many claim Facebook is involved in listening to your conversation with your smartphone microphone. Kelli Burns, a communications professor at South Florida states that she believes Facebook listening to all conversations while the app is open. This passive listening technology by Facebook is in the news for users security concerns. Privacy is the main disadvantage of Facebook, if you are a privacy-oriented person, Facebook is not an advisable social media platform.
The primary and most important disadvantage of Facebook is its privacy features. As we see, Facebook is regularly in the news for its poor privacy features.
2. Facebook is Addictive
Facebook is addictive, yes it is true. There are several cases we found around the world about Facebook addiction. You can check the Facebook addictions in many ways, here are the few examples given below.
- Less interaction with surroundings and spending more time on Facebook.
- Status updates anxiety. Tends to feel more anxious when updating status on Facebook
- Using Facebook even in Bathrooms.
3. Fake Profiles
Fake profiles is another disadvantage of Facebook. For their personal uses people or marketers creates fake profiles for their marketing purposes. It is hard to find the profile is fake or genuine. However, we have many ways to find fake Facebook profiles easily.
4. Sneaking in Other’s Profiles
When you get bored your mind look for a relaxing environment, going through the Facebook news feed, looking for the friend’s updates, comments on your posts, likes will engage your brain gives relaxation. That’s why most people addicted to Facebook. Recently, I experienced one incident, my friend became too addictive to friends status updates on Facebook and developed inferiority complex. It became a habit and he checks Facebook for every 5 minutes for the latest updates. It is better to set a time for Facebook in a day, this will limit the usage time and likely less to become addictive.
5. Beware of False Spreading News
Facebook is available for everyone, some people use this for spreading false news. False news spreaders take the advantage of billions of users in social media, resulting users get upset sometimes and in worst case scenario it can create chaos. So be careful before what you read and check the source before coming to the conclusion. Officially verified pages, persons are trustable sources of news and updates. If you read any disturbing news on Facebook, check the authenticity of the information first.
6. Photo Morphing
Photo morphing is one of its kind cases we have seen on Facebook. Some people are from India became the victims of the photo morphing. In the year 2016, a man has morphed the images from a 21-year old woman. He morphed her face to an unclad women body. The victim is disturbed after seeing her morphed picture on the Internet and she hung herself. Morphing is such kind of activity we see especially in women pictures. Users, please take a reality check of the current scenario and avoid the personal photos uploading on the Internet.
Summing up
Advantage or disadvantage, it is purely based on how you use Facebook. If you don’t have control over the amount of time you spend on Facebook, it advisable to set a time limit on usage.
In other cases, if you are using Facebook for building a networking platform, it has many advantages in it.
What type of person you are while using Facebook? Let us know in the comments below.