3 Ways Facebook Can Ruin Your Life

reghakr

Essential Member
We don’t live with Facebook so much as Facebook lives with us. You may think the simple socialnetworking tool is ours to command, but Facebook can have a much bigger impact on your life than you may have thought. Sure, it may make it easier to keep up to date on your favorite worm-themed websites (hint, hint) but have you ever really thought about the negative side effects the faceless website storing all your personal information can have? Things like…

1.It Can Give You Cancer

There’s convenience in text messages and e-mails. You can send them from almost anywhere without actually having to talk to, stand up or see the person you’re conversing with (and you can do it without pants). On top of that, it allows you to talk to people you don’t actually like without having to reveal the burning rage they fill you with (and let’s face it, you’ve got more than one D-lister on your friends list somewhere).

cancer.jpg

His face says “Die in a fire,” but his comment says “lol.”

However, the problem with social networking websites is that they promise to bring people together while they are actually isolating a large part of their user base. The more time you spend posting news stories or pretending you’re not wasting your time on FarmVille, the less time you spend actually talking to people face-to-face. According to Dr. Aric Sigman, the isolation caused by heavy use of websites like Facebook can actually mess you up something fierce. The problems range from manipulated hormone levels and how your genes work to something serious like artery function and increased chance of developing cancer. Feel free to look that up in your user agreement. I’ll wait.

cancer02.jpg

Spoiler alert: it's not there.

Face-to-face communication has effects that we don’t immediately notice, like the release of certain chemicals in the body. And while telling your little brother to bite your *** via a cleverly rhyming status update may make you feel all warm and fuzzy, you’re not getting the full effective of actually telling him to bite your *** in meter. Honestly, it’s all about staying in touch with the people you love.

2.It Will End Your Relationship Faster

One of Facebook’s more questionable features is the ability to advertise whether or not you’re in a relationship and who you are in a relationship with. It doesn’t sound like a terrible idea on paper but once you realize that a large percentage of Facebook’s user base are teens and tweens who have terrible taste in music, express their love with terrible lyrics and can’t be bothered to spell properly, it makes you want to punch yourself in the throat until you faint or die.

faster.jpg

He knows every Fallout Boy lyric, but hasn’t realized red squiggles indicate a spelling error.

According to Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder of Facebook and part-time polo shirt enthusiast, certain factors of Facebook activity can predict the downfall of a relationship within a week. The biggest factor is communication patterns, both with your significant other and other people.

That is to say, if you spend more time chatting with that chunky girl from the office than your actual girl friend, things probably aren’t going to end well. Or maybe they are if you like chunky girls. Whatever man, that’s just your scene.

faster1.jpg
“Like” indeed.


But none of that is really all that surprising. If you don’t spend much time talking with your other half in the real world then you’re going to find yourself on the wrong side of couples counseling. That should be obvious. The real trouble is the nature of Facebook itself promotes more of the online communication if it already exists. Now you and the office girl can chat from anywhere with a Wi-fi connection and any device with Internet access much more often than you would before, not to mention doing so in a very public forum. So now when your Facebook addiction gives you some horrible cancer you’ll also be nursing a broken heart because you weren’t smart enough to keep your sexy hijinks off the Internet. Way to go, cheaty-face

3.It Will Legally Screw You Over

Facebook and privacy are in a constant struggle for dominance, and much like the Fist of the North Star and Southern Cross, the two must never meet. Anyone with a Facebook account has heard time and time again the dangers of revealing too much information online. Despite this non-stop repeating of common sense, Facebook crimes are up over three-hundred percent in the past year. I’m not evening going to try and figure out how that works, but I assume it’s operated primarily by terror.

legally.jpg

Facebook crime.

Keri McMullen learned the whole “privacy” thing the hard way. After posting that she’d be heading out to a bar, which bar she’d be heading to and when she’d be there, she was robbed by two men, one of which was a recent addition to her friends list. I’m assuming she later removed said friend but until I see it in print I’ll assume that no, no she didn’t. Thanks to a security camera, she was able to catch the crooks but she still felt the need to go on a media tour to tell her story about how you shouldn’t tell strangers your schedule, especially when you’re leaving your home and all the valuables that dwell within. Again, its common sense, but it sounds incredibly silly when it’s coming from a crying woman on CNN.

Keri’s crime was committed because of what she revealed on Facebook. The bigger issue may lie in how sites like Facebook are being used by lawyers during cases to reveal what you think are harmless musings. In what I can only assume is Dick Wolf’s wet dream become reality, lawyers are using information revealed on social networking sites as part of their cases. If you’ve ever bothered to read the user agreement (and we know you only pretended to read it in section one up there) then you already know that these websites are required by law to fork over your information under certain circumstances. So if you express your fondness for hentai by joining every Overfiend group you can find but don’t want a stenographer to forever record your secret shame as “Exhibit A,” you may want to seek therapy or reconsider a career in crime.

legally01.jpg

It’s a slippery slope.

People have had things they’ve posted come back to haunt them in court. In a Texas case involving a fatal driving accident, the prosecution used one of the defense’s MySpace postings against him. A post in which he proudly declared “I’m not an alcoholic, I’m a drunkaholic” suddenly seemed like an awful idea. Granted, he probably wasn’t planning on killing someone with his car after writing such a witticism but it doesn’t take tremendous foresight to know that confessing to alcoholism on the Internet can only lead to tears.
 
Back
Top