The Use and Misuse of Social Networks

Today I am going to rant about how social networks seem to be constantly abused and misused by people these days. First of all what is a social network, you may ask… Ok lets define it:

A social network as it related to computer science is a dedicated website or other application that enables users to communicate with each other by posting information, comments, messages, images, etc.

What I am going to discuss today occurs all day every day on Facebook, but I am not just picking on facebook it happens on all social networks!

Before I get started let us discuss the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory… The Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory (GIFT) is a postulate which asserts that normal, well-adjusted people may display psychopathic or antisocial behaviors when given both anonymity and a captive audience on the Internet. This explains why YouTube comment sections seem to be filled with ignorance. This same behavior was observed on CB radios back when they were popular. When the internet became popular anonymity was pretty much a given… most people went by usernames or handles, but this anonymity has gradually gone away in recent years. It doesn’t exist at all on Facebook, but it seems that people forget that or fail to even realize it. This can cause some serious issues to crop up from time to time…

Posting hypocritical bullshit to facebook will fail every time, because lack of anonymity means that if someone can call you out on it, they certainly will! Now every "friend" you have on facebook, their friends, friends of friends, people browsing google, Kim Jong Un dictator of North Korea, and lets just say pretty much the whole entire freaking world is looking at this stupid crap and wondering just what the hell is going on and why you are such an idiot.

Lack of anonymity and the fact that most people don’t know how to secure their facebook also means that posting racist and sexist jokes can been seen by the very people you are making fun of and this can lead to dire consequences…

If you are having issues with someone, social networks definitely aren’t the place for the drama to play out. Besides the fact that you should never air out your dirty laundry in the street, the fact that you aren’t face to face with the your opponent means you are apt to say something stupid and cruel to them that you would never say to their face, and it makes you look like an idiotic fool. I think it’s funny when people chew people out on facebook, and say stuff like grow up, or shut up, or that people are immature. But, they are just as immature, otherwise they would have gone to whoever they had these choice words for and told them personally.

Alas, even if you don’t try to misuse facebook yourself, that doesn’t mean that your friends and family won’t. Things you had rather keep quiet or really don’t want others to know about you have a way of creeping out and embarrassing you at the most inopportune of times on social networks. And it can be done by the most innocent of people who mean no harm what-so-ever.

Facebook is dangerously addictive. People get so consumed by posting, answering posts, re-posting jokes and memes, posting pictures of their dinner, that hours and hours of their day are wasted.
The ability to post to facebook from smart phones means that any pictures you snap with your phone can be immediately posted to facebook. Add this to facebook’s ability to use gps and other means to track our every movement means that if you post status updates and/or photos to facebook while on vacation you just tipped off some of your shadier friends and their friends and friends of friends that your house is unoccupied and ripe for burglary! You think that doesn’t happen? Take a look at this: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/06/post-smug-vacation-statuses-on-facebook-get-your-house-burgled/