Facebook- The way it is meant to be.




Internet- The way its meant to be. This is the mission statement of one of the two Internet service providers in Maldives. Rajje Online. They are talking about providing Internet services in the way it's meant to be. I am going to talk about using the Internet in the way its meant to be.


Internet for me looks like an environment. In this environment you could see, and find almost everything. Good or bad. And you could roam around in this environment in a way that you prefer.

The big question is, are we using this wisely? Do we really do anything productive when we spend hours and hours on Internet?

Surely not. Lets not talk about 'opening' the door of this world-Internet to kids without any supervision as it is too general a reality though it is a totally big mistake. Forgetting the kids, are the elders using Internet properly? Very frankly, I don't think so.

One of the applications, or I guess a social community very much used by many Maldivians is facebook. Since I began using facebook, one thing that I found was, for us, it was less of a social network. It looked more like a place where we express our own personnel feelings. I am not saying that expressing personnel feeling cannot be taken as a part of been social. It can be, yet surely it is not the end of story.

Since I joined the facebook, I felt that it is a good platform where we could discuss on various important matters rather than keeping it as a mere online diary of mine. What I observed was that many takes facebook as a time pass. Hardly few of the links or notes or any posts that comes up are productive. I am not saying it can not be used in that way, yet I am sure it can be used more wisely.

At this point I got the feeling that we, Maldivians really take big things small and small things big. When I lose phone, my key ,my sleep, etc....its a very big issue and discussed all again and again and again. But hardly any of us seems to bother discussing and thinking about things that we really need to address. Facebook is a social network. We have so many social problems among us, specially the divisions among members of our own society.

I thought to check on this. In the past 3days, my facebook status updates were all about...my love, my girlfriend, my heart, my dream, my soul and my, my, my!!!

Many I found were keen to discuss on that. Many asked me online about my life. I just thought. We got to stop using facebook as our own diary and use it for its purpose. Social. We can use facebook to solve social issues among us as well.

My thnking may not be same as yours. It doesn't have to be either. Before you go on tell me that facebook is a community for this and that, think and answer to yourself..... Do YOU use internet in the way you really should use? Do you use it in a productive and purposeful manner. Finally, do you use facebook wisely. :)

photo:www.connectworld.net/www1.html