Response to Devins Post on Facebook Usage

    On google reader, I saw a post by Devin that discussed the distraction of Facebook while doing homework. I have experienced the distraction that is Facebook many times and it has added many hours to my homework load.
   

“After spending hours on homework, anyone can get lonely. Facebook is the solution to that and soon, the victim will be doing other stuff other than chatting.

       Chatting leads to other activities. For example when someone logs on, they see a wall full of people who have commented. This drives curiosity and the next thing you know, you're checking out what your friend or friends' friends said. Sometimes there are links to quizzes and you feel like taking that quiz just to say how you rank or what you are. See how a simple chat leads to so much time wasting. This is called the snowball effect.”

    I think Devin makes a very valid point when he says the snowball effect happens when a student that should be doing homework is on Facebook. I think the site is designed to keep users occupied with enticing graphics that hook users into staying on the site longer. The snowball effect happens when a user keeps clicking profiles and pictures and eventually spends a lot of time on the site, Facebook. When a user sees something interesting on their news feed then they feel inclined to click it and participate in it such as a quiz.
    Social networking sites, like Facebook make their money when people see advertisements in the side bar or when they click them. It benefits Facebook when people click pages on the site because that means more views for their advertisers which mean more money for the site. If pages are exciting to click then Facebook gains more and more money. When people have a lot of fun on Facebook, they send invites to people that are not current Facebook users and when they join, this adds to Facebook’s revenue and entertainment value.


NOTE: While typing this post, I checked face book twice spending a total of 14 minutes on the site. This shows that Facebook is truly an epidemic. ;)