by Leigh Goessl

Created on: November 03, 2009   Last Updated: April 04, 2011

Online activities have rapidly become a part of the daily routines of individuals all across the globe. Facebook is one of those activities that tops the list of Internet activities. While there are many reasons why being a Facebook member is advantageous, there are also many reasons why Facebook may be considered bad for you.  A few of the top contenders are safety, addiction and the fact it could cause harm to a career, or put a job in jeopardy.

The dynamics occurring on Facebook is an interesting phenomenon because it has changed the structure of online social networking. Previously on networking sites such as MySpace, people tended to use chat names and still communicated and connected with others. People typically remained within the anonymous factor the Internet had previously encouraged. Today it is a different scenario.

Facebook, which tops the list of social activities with hundreds of millions of members, encourages people to share their real identities, personal information and brings social networking to a much higher level. This kind of philosophy has led to the aforementioned safety, addiction and troubles in professional lives emerging.

• Safety

With the heavy use of Facebook, safety has become a primary issue. Way too many people post personal information about themselves that they mistakenly belief is safely contained within the walls of Facebook. This is not necessarily true. While it is true Facebook offers privacy tools to help combat this problem, the fact is that anything posted on the Internet can be copy/pasted and shared through the site's internal messaging system, e-mail or other messaging problems.

People post on their statuses when they are on vacation, information about their children, and share other intimate details of what they're doing at any given time. This information is not necessarily hidden from search engines, and can even show up on your friend's lists if strangers (to you) are checking them.

Since Facebook encourages people to use their real identities and has built their business model around connecting with people you know, a lot of personal information is shared online that normally would not even be considered and, as a result, people often, albeit inadvertently, put themselves at risk.

• Addiction

It is easy to become addicted to Facebook. With all the features the site offers, it is often overwhelming, but some may want to enjoy the entire Facebook experience and spend inordinate amounts of time

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