Facebook, is it a must have?

          People nowadays tend to have their life revolved around the Internet. Youngsters, even adults, enjoy using the Internet and its many applications. There is an outbreak of social networking sites that people subscribe to. One of which is Facebook. Facebook is a social networking service and website launched last February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook Inc. Day by day, the population of Facebook users continue to swell and according to Facebook's website, it gained more than 800 million active users. Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerburg with his colleagues and fellow computer science students Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moscovitz and Chris Hughes. It was initially limited to the founders and Harvard students but was expanded to other colleges in Boston area, the Ivy League and Stanford University before it was eventually made open to anyone aged 13 and above.
          In order to surf Facebook, users must register. After that, they may customize their personal profile, add other user as friends, and exchange chain of messages with them. Facebook also includes an automatic notifications when users update their profile, leave their posts, comment at other user's statuses, photos and many more. There are other cool features which include joining or creating group/s, organized by workplace, school, or college, and users can categorize their friends into lists such as "Close Friends", "Acquaintances", "People from Work" and many more. Users can upload photos and videos, can add contact and personal information. Facebook allows users to choose their own privacy setting, can control who can see specific parts of their profile, other information they shared, as well as who can find them.
          Since multifold of people are using Facebook, many entrepreneur grabbed this opportunity to sell products online. There is a widespread of shops who upload photos of their products and tag random people and they leave some description about their product, mode of payment and contact numbers. It is one of the most effective ways of advertising nowadays. 
          In addition, the innovation of technology made Facebook available not only for computers but on many devices such as cellphones and tablets. It enables users to continuously stay in touch with other users all over the world as long as they have an Internet connection.
           There are some cons Facebook possess. Some said that such practice causes increase in antisocial tendencies because of indirect communication between people. There are some cases like spam attack wherein pages in Facebook contains or posts nude photos. Once they got clicked, users are actually sending those links to other users without their knowledge. Good thing the Facebook team is currently doing what they can in order to put a halt to this problem."studies have revealed that excessive daily use of social media can negatively affect the health of children, preteens and teenagers alike as they are more prone to anxiety, depression and other psychological disorders as well as more susceptible to future general health problems " (Neuro-Behavioral Clinical Research, 2011). Moreover, Facebook has an effect to students. “Studies found that middle school, high school and college students who checked Facebook at least once during a 15-minute study period achieved lower grades” (Neuro-Behavioral Clinical Research, 2011).        
          In conclusion, there are pros and cons in using Facebook. Communication, opportunities for other people mainly businessmen and many more are just some of the pros but it possesses cons too such as widespread of offensive photos, words and the like. Behind this, Facebook is indeed a hip, a cherry on top. No wonder why it attracted and gained a lot of users and is continuously growing and dominating over other social networking sites.