How facebook can ruin (or) rein your life

'facebook' changed the way we communicate with others.  What are its implications ?  These are few points I observe while strolling in the facebook world.

Negatives :
   * Privacy
   * Addiction and time killing

Positives :
   * New dimension in communicating.
   * Feeling of being in social life.
  
Privacy :
   Before 10 years, If I need to meet my friends, I used to meet them in some public place (or) in home.  We used to chat, eat and celebrate the time and leave it.  Full stop.
   If I try to mimic the same thing in facebook, I won't get even half of the real meeting feel.  Whatever I try to say will become status updates / comments.  I will miss that real touch and feel.  I have to be conscious of my privacy and who will see these posts before pressing Enter.  Whatever I say will become record which may not be desirable in the interest of our long lasting friendship.  Unlike business, We don't need records in our friendship. :-)
   Some applications like News Readers (Guardian, thatstamil etc.) post the news items whatever we read in their website and make it public.  This may be embarrassing sometimes if the news item is considered immoral one.  There are some virus applications exist just to extract our data.  Not everyone aware of this.

  Sometimes people bully you and cause unnecessary embarrassment in front of others.  This won't happen in a face to face conversations, at least the damage is repairable.
  Some of our public status updates like I will be out of town this weekend is of jackpot value to criminals. 
Addiction and Time Killing :
   I used to login facebook, when I am lazy, have nothing to do and this is the easy option to pass  the time.
Like TV, there is no end to facebook browsing and the kind of comfort this virtual world offers.  It is a curiosity which constantly urges us to see how many likes / comments we got for our post, Am I having more friends, Am I able to beat my friend in social world games.....to login / logout of the facebook many times a day.  It can distract us from our normal work.  It can make us ignore our immediate family and friends when we feel merrier in the illusory world.
   I also get into this problem, and I set a goal to myself to log in facebook only once in a day.
   There are no free, reliable applications to restrict our facebook usage.
   
New dimension in communicating :
  Facebook gives me the ability to connect with my child hood friend with whom I had lost my contact and he is working in some distant African desert.  I can even find mutual friends, friends based on my likes, pages relating to the areas I want to explore, up to date with latest happenings,... It is amazing.  It is indeed a new dimension in spreading the news, and being in touch with the distant friends in offline or in online.

Feeling of being in social life :
   Man is a social animal.  He needs approval, being liked (or) pissed off by others, share his feelings, thoughts.  It is true that facebook helps  to achieve this to some extent.

At last, I would say,
   Take the positives, aware of the negatives.
   Be with the change which is inevitable in any evolution.