Group Discussion Contest 30th August to 5th September 2011

Arun,
I agree with you that this may be one of the reason youth are attracted but haven you seen the site activities and if you go through the games part, senior citizens are also there, who also play the games equally. I think they are more than youth if you compare. What i noticed is house wifes, retired people and young children are more in Games section compared to youth. It doesnt mean youth do not use Facebook, they use for the same purporse you specified and for chatting.

yes, you are right youth doesnt not suits the criteria, specificed as 16 and above are considered youth.

Arun jain- I gave some narration of chaupals and coffee house chats only to give a background. The real life interaction is more intimate. Social chatting is a human tendency and internet has facilitated this beyond imagination. additionally, everyone can interact at own time unlike real life interaction when both should be available at the same time. Thus you may write some thing at midnight and I may response next morning.

I know and I am not at all against your views, I just felt they were a bit out of context as we were specifically discussing facebook and more appropriate background would have been why email, orkut and twitter failed.

Anyways, that was just my two cents.

Arun,
I agree with you that this may be one of the reason youth are attracted but haven you seen the site activities and if you go through the games part, senior citizens are also there, who also play the games equally. I think they are more than youth if you compare. What i noticed is house wifes, retired people and young children are more in Games section compared to youth. It doesnt mean youth do not use Facebook, they use for the same purporse you specified and for chatting.

yes, you are right youth doesnt not suits the criteria, specificed as 16 and above are considered youth.

Rajani you are absolutely right when you say that more than youths seniors and house wives use Facebook, a recent surveyed showed the same trend. More than 80% people who are above the age 50 use facebook and more than 53% housewives use facebook.

I was just focusing on the reasons on why facebook is popular among the youths.

A great topic for GD.
My views are as follows.
THe youth of these days are seeking variety.When facebook came into existance they felt it a unique idea.So more youth got attracted.Now it is introducing more and more things that maintain the popularity.It is also getting successful.But am not at all interested in FB.

The second par of GD would there be any age limit for FB members.There is lower age limit in all sites.To become a member one should have to complete 18 years in most sites.But we humans have a lot of ways to overcome any rules and regulations.We make our DOB to a convenient day to suit this.

I think there should be a strict lower age limit which has to be proved before enrolling into a site.Regarding upper age limit there should not be any barrier as some get introduced to this cyber world very late.

[quote]Kalyani, correct me if I am wrong...The second part of the GD says, should there be an age limit for joining facebook which as I said in my earlier posts already exists.

DO we even have to argue on the point that it should be increased?

I mean it won't go well with the first part which specifically says youth and by youth one automatically knows that we talking of 16 years and above. So the second part wont make much of a sense. Next time we can have a topic like "Are Students Getting Addicted to Facebook and should the minimum age to use facebook be increased"

Anyways, I am ready to discuss the second part if it means discussing whether the age limit should increase or not, just thought would clear with you before post my views. [/quote]

Arun, its true that there is an age limit of 13 years for joining facebook, but is it legally binding and is it enforced by parents?? When we speak of youth in general we talk about people mainly falling in 18 to 30-35 years category! So we can change it to what you suggested - Should the minimum age to use Facebook be increased?

As youth implicate students too, the part "Are Students Getting Addicted to Facebook" can be discussed in the ongoing topic itself!

yes, as I agree with Rajani, Facebook is used as a directory to find someone or find a review about something.

But the games played on facebook are from external sites like zynga which makes money by people playing on them.

Thank Arun and Swetha for going with my views. :)

As now kalyani has made the necessary adjustments to the question I will talk about the age criteria only.

Most of the sites state 18 years as minimum age but since facebook is US site the rules are according to their culture. They stated 13 years as minmum age as most of the children become independent by that time in US, which is not the case of India and other Asian countries. Though we find the age should be increased according to our culture it is not possible in real time. There is no advantage in increasing the Age, as no one knows that really a 13 year child is creating the account or not. However,parents should only control in this type of cases if they feel the FB can ruin the child future.

Regarding the second point "Are Students Getting Addicted to Facebook" my answer would be : Absolutely YES.
Reason is due to the atmosphere the FB creates which is attractive in teenage. And not only FB almost most of the social networking sites are like that only. And as ARUN said previously whatever they can not do in real life can be done here. It is exactly one of the main reason. Addiction is also towards the Games as they are user-friendly. :)

Internet connects the whole world within fraction of a second. It is the easiest way to interact with the people all over the world. There are different types of sites meant for different purposes. The best way to interact with people is through the social networking sites. Facebook has gained the most popularity.
Facebook has lots and lots of page 3 news. It tells a lot about fashion and film industry. Ups and downs in life of many celebrity stars and models. Their new releasing movies or music videos makes people crazy. We can follow our favourite celebrites and stars.

We get all types of news, day to day events and happenings around the world.

We can chat with our friends or send message at very fast speed. Video calling and video chatting are good. I would say group chatting is "adda" on internet sitting back at home, avoiding traffic gams and pollution or wasting time in cafeteria.

We also get educational and non educational topics or articles in this site.

Internet is also a good source of income for the people who works at home. Facebook helps them to advertise their business or work on facebook. You can also join many sites from facebook ads.
Facebook has everything and it is for all types of users be it business, education, job, politics, sports, drama, modeling, film, technology, etc. You get all types of searches on facebook. Many social, political, business and marketing sites are connected with facebook.

As each and every thing as both possitive as well as negative aspect, the minimum age eligible to use facebook should be 18 years and maximum should be no bar.

I think it is not an addiction, infact it is an obsession! Students log on to facebook within seconds after they log-out just to check how many people have 'like' their 'status' or posted a 'comment' on their 'status'.

I was recently pondering this question myself, and this is what I came up with: Myspace is for "kids"... and Facebook is for "grownups"...

I think they're doing this because Facebook appears to be more mature, since it is less customizable. There aren't any crazy backgrounds and stickers etc. on Facebook, making it appear more for adults.

Facebook nice for many reasons.
1) It is more secure and you are less likely to be hacked.
2) There are less advertisements
3) It has more options (yes you are not able to customize it as much but it offers TONS of features that myspace doesnt!
4) It has been researched that more stalkers are on Myspace

I think if you say to your son or daugther that if you lie in internet you lie in a life and in future you can get troubles just tell increadible story about it how it's so bad, but kids like just waana enjoy time

@Sumit,

It is very easy to hack facebook..There was a time where I clicked on my friend's profile which was hacked(I dint knew it) and the next minute, my profile was hacked with my picture changed into something disgusting!

Facebook is a tricky social networking site, it has so many options to leave you confused.

There are advertisements that need you to click on "like" and then they disappear!

In fact there are many 'hate groups' on facebook that is changing the way kids think..

I feel that not only Facebook but other sites like Utube and even Epapers encourage slanderous and venomous contents and remarks. Yesterday, I saw several comments about Swami Agnivesh in very vulgar and unprintable language in Hindi using roman script.

This is in fact, a matter of culture and etiquette. There are many with pent up feelings who find the social network as a tool to express their vulgarity.

I feel that not only Facebook but other sites like Utube and even Epapers encourage slanderous and venomous contents and remarks. Yesterday, I saw several comments about Swami Agnivesh in very vulgar and unprintable language in Hindi using roman script.

This is in fact, a matter of culture and etiquette. There are many with pent up feelings who find the social network as a tool to express their vulgarity.

Gulshaji that is true and as everyone have right in expression and commenting the views this is happening. There should be some strict rules in handling this situation. However, if such vulgar comments are posted if the other members report it to the site admin then either the member or comment will be banned.

I agree with Swetha that as technology has improved there is lot of malicious activities going on in websites. Even orkut has many security lags.

I feel that not only Facebook but other sites like Utube and even Epapers encourage slanderous and venomous contents and remarks. Yesterday, I saw several comments about Swami Agnivesh in very vulgar and unprintable language in Hindi using roman script.

This is in fact, a matter of culture and etiquette. There are many with pent up feelings who find the social network as a tool to express their vulgarity.

Gulshaji that is true and as everyone have right in expression and commenting the views this is happening. There should be some strict rules in handling this situation. However, if such vulgar comments are posted if the other members report it to the site admin then either the member or comment will be banned.

This is a unique feature of most popular social networking sites. There will no question of reporting as the topics and group exclusively pertain to the perverted. I mentioned Hindi vulgarity in u Tube. Similarly, others may also write their own language slang in Roman alphabet. When there is majority of certain type on a site, even reporting is no use.

Thanks for clearing the air Kalyani.

Now coming to the age issue, as Rajani and me said in our earlier posts that facebook is US based and it follows the US rules. So unless they consider the age too low, there is nothing we can do about it. Instead, have a look at all the indian social networking sites, they all mention that a use should be above 16.

But yea, I do suggest some unofficial policing by the parents and guardians. See the minimum ages on any site, be it indian or American is just an indicator of the sample age of maturity and it in no means suggest that any person above the age of 13 or 16 is fit enough to use any site without any harmful influence. So a constant check by parents on their kids behavior and activity would be very useful.

Also, adults should carefully analyze their change in behavior which is obvious once you get addicted to anything. Ask your friends and peers for honest opinions.

And as far as students getting addicted to facebook is concerned, then yes they are getting addicted and the companies and universities launching their pages on facebook have aggravated this issue more. I mean many people now use facebook as a search engine and get upto date and latest information. Also, if you closely observed, most colleges and abroad universities promote on facebook, offer scholarships run contests etc.

So along with these activities students do their own personal stuff. I think it is important that students realize the importance of real meets with people and also keep a check on how much time they are wasting and what they are gaining in return. A healthy balance will be in favor of everybody.

In conclusion, the use of facebook really depends on the individual and to an extent on their parents and guardians. If you use facebook right, not only you can stay connected to your friends, you can also earn some money and find upto date information.

Gulshaji it is not possible to completely control anything on Internet. The content of youtube gives lot of money to the site so as the social networking site. They do not care about what the content is, however, in exteme conditions some similar groups were completely banned, after some users started a group aganist it by reporting it as improper and hurting content. The site provide reporting feature just to keep the poster to be alert not to post any bad content. If people dont follow this, they dont care unless some reports come aganist it, in large number. Hence, it is good to report whatever be the result.