Recent studies have suggested that Facebook may be making us more lonely than ever Researchers have found that non-internet social interaction is decreasing Essentially, technology is making it easier to contact other people and have a large group of friends but at the same time it is making our relationships less deep and less meaningful People have less and less quality social connections For example, in 1985 only 10 percent of Americans said they had no close confidants to share secrets with But in 2004 the number of people with no close confidants had risen to 15 percent Studies have also shown that lonely and introverted people are more likely to spend time on Facebook and they prefer the wall feature to the chat feature The Facebook offices in California have some interesting and unusual policies for their employees Facebook employees work very long hours Employees and managers sometimes share deskspace instead of having seperate offices Free food and drinks are available all the time The office has a game room with Wii, Rock Band and pingpong There is a large outdoor garden for taking walks Finally Mark Zuckerberg keeps the office at just 15 degrees to increase productivity and keep his employees alert Although there is very little evidence that this tactic is effective Since the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, the most likely candidate to replace him was a Dutch cardinal named Bonifacius Steuer But he recently lost the support of the church when a photo album was discovered on his facebook showing images from his 2007 spring break in Florida The photo albums shows the cardinal on a three day long party rampage He is seen drinking beer, going to strip clubs and fraternity parties and making gang signs The church abandoned him as a candidate for pope because of the future embarrassment and ridicule the pictures would certainly cause for the church if he was elected pope A mother of two in Oklahoma USA named Misty VanHorn tried to sell her children on Facebook for $4000 She has two daughters ages years and 10 months She offered the 10 month old separately for $1000 or both of them together for $4000 A woman from a nearby town had accepted the offer and was coming to pick up the girls when police found out and arrested VanHorn The children are now in state custody and VanHorn is in prison She wanted the money to bail out her boyfriend who is also in jail You may not know it but Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are all subject to police surveillance Many police departments in large cities have an officer working 24/7 to watch for suspicious Facebook activity The officers use a software program that looks for keywords that are related to criminal activity Some people and groups protest that this surveillance is a violation of people's right to privacy (along with cameras in public places) but police argue that it is necessary to prevent crime and protect citizens Quitting Facebook can be very difficult Is it worth the pain? Journalist Mike McGlade wrote an article recently about his decision to quit Facebook He decided that overall the result was positive but extremely difficult at first He says “There are a lot of negatives that come with Facebook I realized that all of my idle time was spent on Facebook doing nothing.” So he quit cold turkey on January 1, 2013 He described his first few weeks “I didn't know what to with my free time But after a few weeks I realized it gives you a lot of time to reflect upon yourself and see what's out there For example, I had dinner a few weeks ago with an old friend that I hadn't seen or spoken to in over a year” Do you lie on Facebook? A third of women have admitted to be dishonest at least once a month on Facebook For example people can lie about their relationship, or post photos of places they have not been etc Reasons for lying include worry that we are not really good enough or interesting enough, feeling jealous of other people's posts and feeling like you have nothing interesting to say A new website called “Pencourage” is trying to create a more honest alternative to Facebook Pencourage is a personal online diary where you can post your honest thoughts completely anonymously No one can find out your identity You can sign up to “follow” people like on Twitter and Facebook no one knows who you are The goal is to encourage honest communication The site has been online for two months and 3000 users have joined According to legal experts, it will soon become necessary for people to specify in their wills who will have access to their Facebook account after their death Now that records such as photos and letters are more often online rather than in a physical box somewhere it is becoming more difficult for relatives to claim them as property after the death of a family member Now when family members seek to access Facebook and Twitter accounts after a death they are sometimes denied access because of privacy rules for these sites There are not very many laws that cover this type of situation so it is becoming more and more important for people to decide in advance who will get access to their social networks after they die Facebook is planning to sue a small startup company in Illinois over it's choice of name The small company is called “Teachbook” and it is meant to share lesson plans and advice between teachers Facebook says the idea for the name belongs to Facebook Even though “Teachbook” is a small website with only about 20 users Facebook is worried that their name will “dillute” the Facebook idea Facebook does not want them to use the word “book” at all Even though many people argue that Facebook is bad for social interaction because it keeps people at their computers and away from meeting face to face, there are some people that think Facebook is actually helping our social interaction Journalist Gretchen Rubin thinks that Facebook is good because it helps us to manage a larger group of friends than we could by more direct ways For example, most people don't have time to write letters to 300 people or call them on the telephone But we have time to be friends with 300 people on Facebook And since young people are very likely to move around the world before settling down, Rubin argues that Facebook helps people not to lose all of their friends every time they move She thinks that for these reasons, Facebook makes us happier, not sadder According to the British newspaper The Telegraph, the royal family has finally created a Facebook page You cannot actually friend any members of the royal family or post on their wall But you can like the page to follow their posts and comment on the photos of the Queen, Prince Harry and the others So far 90,000 people have liked the page Many people worry about the privacy of Facebook and Twitter They feel like just anybody can look at their information But writer Tim Lee has a theory that Facebook is actually saving our privacy rather than hurting it He argues that before Facebook, when you put information on the internet you had no control over who would see it Now with the many privacy options that Facebook has, we get back much of the control In a normal conversation you can choose to communicate some things and not others He argues that Facebook is the same way You can choose to show your pictures to the public or just to your friends The most common activity on Facebook is people looking at the pictures It is the most popular feature by far Specifically the most common activity is men looking at pictures of women they don't know according to research The second most common activity is men looking at pictures of women they know Researchers have even found that men who are already in a relationship spend a lot of time looking at pictures of other women They suggest that it is a way for men to secretly look for a better match without revealing their interest It is much easier and more convenient for example than spending time with other woman in real life Facebook has become more and more activist in recently It is impossible to use it for one day without seeing political or social causes on your friends' pages But some people worry that this new type of internet activism is lazy and useless They argue that Facebook campaigns attract media attention but that this attention does not always increase their effectiveness Opponents worry that people will stop volunteering, marching and donating money (traditional forms of activism) in favor of simply clicking a “like” button which is much easier They worry that social activism will suffer more than is will gain from the Facebook revolution Is Facebook a fad? Will it be replaced by another social network in a few years? Journalist Farhad Manjoo says no He says that Facebook is here to stay because it is now a part of our daily lives in an essential way Nearly half of Facebook users login everyday Also Facebook has attracted users of every type, age, job, etc He argues that it is too big and too popular to go away For example, for you to use a different social network, all of your friends would have to quit Facebook and go to the new site as well In spite of the many controversies and problems with privacy on Facebook, it's growth has not slowed at all Manjoo argues that it is too difficult to leave Facebook now and that it will be an important website for a long time There are many controversies on Facebook when it comes to photos People can put up photos and tag you without your permission Sometimes you may not like the photos they put up Some people worry about party photos hurting their reputation and looking bad to employers Some people like to post very old pictures from childhood or highschool that were taken before Facebook even existed This can cause embarrassment for people who not want their friends now to see what they were like before Facebooks does not offer many options for photo removal You can either “untag” yourself (but the photo remains on Facebook) or you can request that the user remove the photo The user does not have to what you ask though and many people complain that this limits their control over their internet reputation A newly redesigned virus called the Ramnit Worm recently hacked 50,000 Facebook users in France and the USA The virus works by stealing the user's password and taking control of their accounts The virus can then post advertisements on users walls or have access to their address book Oftentimes the virus will send a message to everyone on the user's friend list including a link which goes to another virus A good protection against hacking is to change your password regularly Do you worry about your Facebook being hacked? Facebook as a company is worth a lot of money It recently was sold for billions of dollars But is it actually a profitable business? Facebook is essentially made up of people The product of a site like Amazon is more traditional; clothes, books, electronics etc These are things that can be bought and sold But the product that Facebook offers is it's users Facebook's value could theoretically disappear overnight if all of it's users decided to leave Some people argue that is it because it is difficult to predict the behavior of people Facebook is not as stable and valuable as it seems People follow fashion expecially on the internet and can be very surprising Would you invest money in Facebook or Twitter?