by Mishra Planeswalker

Created on: January 25, 2009

As a former Facebook junkie, I can say for certain that online social networking sites like it are slowly but surely replacing face to face conversation. Facebook was originally intended to bring people together, but now it is serving to do just the opposite of that, by reducing the number of in-person encounters two or more people will have with each other.

The first reason that Facebook is eroding away at our society's social skills is the method of communication it offers. Due to the vast array of opinions that exist on this massive social networking site, disputes often arise. Unfortunately, these disputes often become massive flame wars that result in nothing but more hurt feelings, as well as even more "revenge" flame wars. Unlike Helium, which provides an avenue for "Civilized Discourse," Facebook encourages short, witty, and sometimes blatantly offensive posts because nobody wants to bother reading anything that would require a significant amount of thought to read. This, in turn, has the potential to make users angry at the real world, and sometimes they cannot bear to go outside, for fear they'll get flamed.

The other reason that Facebook is becoming the primary social avenue for young people is the ease of communication. Anywhere there's a computer, you can send a facebook message, whereas a social gathering in real life can require plenty of time, effort, and organizational skills to put together, very few of which are posessed by your average Facebook user.

The sheer novelty of some of the things Facebook allows you to do is probably its biggest allure to the younger audiences. This site provides a plethora of free games and applications that you can waste hours with. I can't count how much time I lost playing JetMan, or throwing virtual sheep at my friends. The ability to rapidly switch between hundreds of applications in quick succession makes it so even the shortest attention spans can get their fill on Facebook.

All in all, I believe that due to its unique methods of communication, how easy Facebook is to use, and its novelty, Facebook is gradually becoming the number one way to communicate amongst the somuter-savvy generation. I deleted my facebook account 8 months ago, and I've led a more social life, and I can easily say that we, as humans, are much more suited to communicate verbally, face to face, instead of behind screens where anyone's identity is suspect.

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