FOREGO FACEBOOK AND FACE YOUR BOOKS! (For TEENS)

Last Updated on October 14, 2024 by Joshua Isibor

Introduction

There was a time when people used to say that their basic needs were food, shelter, and clothing along with health and education.

But nowadays, my answer will be different and I hope it will not be a shocking reply to this question. I have little pride to say that my basic needs are food, clothes, shelter, and Facebook.

Ask twenty persons the definition of Facebook and I can bet you with my last kobo that you are sure to get twenty different answers. And just as the answers are different, so also, are the impression of people about it.

For some, Facebook is the best thing that has happened to them since their birth, while for others, Facebook is the worst thing that has happened to the youths of our generation. No matter my definition and impression of Facebook, the reality on the ground, is that it has come to stay.

And from the look of things, there is no assurance that it is in a haste to pack and go! Day in and day out more applications are added to it making it more enticing and almost irresistible for many.

Our boys and girls have developed almost an unbelievable addiction to Facebook to the extent that some can forego their three square meals just chatting with friends on Facebook.

Some get so glued to it that if you want them to carry out an important task at home, you may even need a bulldozer to uproot them from their super glued seats.

For people in this category, they only remember that they have not taken their breakfast around 2:00 pm, others are compelled by the revolution in their stomachs to go for dinner around 11:00 am courtesy of Facebook.

But if we may ask, what is Facebook? What can we gain from ‘face-booking?’ or how can we utilize the opportunities offered by Facebook while minimizing, if not entirely avoiding its side effects?

MEANING OF FACEBOOK AND  FACING YOUR BOOK:

Facebook is generally referred to as a social utility or a social network service that connects people with their friends, their loved ones, relatives, schoolmates, business associates, and others who work or live around them.

We can then say that facing your book is a process whereby students sit down to read their books, taking away all distractions to pass their examinations and become useful to their family, town, state, country, and the world as a whole.

BENEFITS OF FACEBOOK AND FACING YOUR BOOK

Facebook:

Facebook is very much social. Though it takes continuous sitting to scroll through, to become familiar with Facebook.

Somehow Facebook is like traveling around the world by just sitting in front of your computer. It is so much fun to make friends, especially online. It is a perfect way to be in touch with old friends and relatives no matter where they are.

Facebook is a perfect place to express our views in front of a wide audience from all over the world. Games and applications are so interactive and they are fun to play. But then, this Facebook is also creating problems with (reading) facing the books!

Hence, with Facebook today many long-time friends who have lost contacts are once again reunited. With Facebook, it is now possible to engage in long conversations and see even the pictures and videos of loved ones.

With Facebook, many relationships are established and some have metamorphosed into lifelong commitments to marriage. With Facebook, students can share ideas on particular areas of interest and can tackle some challenges.

Facebook is no longer a monopoly of the young alone. Politicians have seen it as a very powerful tool for campaigns, knowing that through it, the younger generation can be reached.

Business-oriented individuals and establishments have also cashed in on the inherent advertising power of Facebook to market their products.

For those who are religiously inclined, Facebook could also be a medium for reaching out to fellow believers who also patronize it. Inspirational biblical quotations can be posted. You can never tell who can get inspired by that simple message you decided to post on your wall.

Facebook can indeed be a way to promote good news and share the word of God. You may be surprised to get a bazaar of thunderous “Amen” from people you do not know from Adam just by posting a prayerful wish or a biblical quotation on your wall.

Facebook can also be a powerful avenue for counseling, especially the young people, from the comments they post, one can predict their confused state of mind and helplessness in the face of certain challenges.

We can go on and on listing the merits of Facebook and why the young and old are almost held spellbound by it. But the pertinent question is, apart from the above advantages, are there some areas of concern we may need to pay attention to as Facebook users and potential users?

Facebook is used for the promotion of group study and collaboration, along with the further possibilities of educators and teachers having a “watchful eye” and a “helping hand,” in group discussions which can be taken away from the classroom.

Students can share ideas and their feelings towards a certain subject and help one another in problem-solving and understanding particular concepts. Furthermore, students can share useful information that they have come across in further research they have carried out, even from a topic the teacher has posted.

For example,  particularly a  useful article or an educational video – all of which can be brought “back” into the classroom for discussion and reflect positively on a student’s work.

From Facebook, you can organize private groups in which students can carry out essential large revision sessions from which everyone can benefit.

With one person sharing a particular helpful point or comment or when a particular student is struggling with a certain concept and explains what it is they are struggling with on the Facebook group.

Groups where other students can come in and help with that aspect – which may help additional students too.

Books:

Gives satisfaction. Reading gives a eat satisfaction to the readers. A famous phrase, “curling up with books” creates an image of a warm and close relationship with the books. Even parents feel satisfied when they see their children reading their books.

Children who read achieve better in school. Reading promotes achievement in all subjects, not just English. Children who are good readers tend to achieve better across the curriculum.

REASONS WHY QUITTING FACEBOOK NOW IS GOOD FOR YOUR FUTURE

1. Facebook is a time-waster.
2. It can demotivate you.
3. It makes you deal with useless people.
4. It makes you deal with useless information.
5. It damages your communication skills.
6. It manipulates you to work on your post.
7. It becomes your life.

BAD SIDE OF FACEBOOK TO STUDENTS:

You cannot eat your cake and have it. You cannot chase two rabbits at the same time. You either concentrate on one or you lose both.

Jesus put it succinctly when he said, you cannot be the slave of two masters. You cannot be a facebooker and a book-facer at the same time, with the same strength and level of commitment. It is either your love for Facebook that duces the love for your books or your love for your books will drastically decrease your commitment to Facebook.

Facebook as it is now, I can say with all boldness, does not make a student face their books. In fact for some students, the last time they opened their notebook to read was the first day they got registered on Facebook.

Since then, their books which used to be their closest companions have been given untimely no notice. Sometimes I wonder how the name Facebook came about.

How did the inventors come up with this particular name? What was on their minds when they decided that this particular social network should be called Facebook? Were they expecting that through it, students would be better encouraged to face their books? Well, if that was their intention, I can cacategorizetate that to a very large extent that it is failing.

With Facebook, some students are now backing off their books. And research has shown that the more time and attention you give to Facebook, the less time and attention you give to your studies and even your house chores, and the result, of course, is obvious.

If only some youngsters can dedicate half of the time they spend on Facebook to their studies, our society will be overpopulated with geniuses in various fields.

Apart from the addictive nature of Facebook, some youngsters have found it an effective tool for promoting immorality. Facebook for some has become a home of immortality. Vulgar languages, immoral pictures, shameful videos and posting of mendacious information, and so on have all reared their ugly heads into the Facebook market and are moving from computers to phones.

It is as though the devil has been waiting for this opportunity to get hold of some of his agents and customers. The kind of pictures some ladies post on this public site baffles me. Some even dare to post their nude pictures on this site which is accessible to the public.

To worsen the situation, a perusal of the comments made by so-called friends clearly shows that without divine intervention the whole world may soon become a global Sodom and Gomorrah. Pictures that people should be ashamed of and friends should shun their so-called friends for displaying, are welcomed with loud acclamations of praise and encouragement.

Even the very innocent ones are not left out. People who ordinarily, given their family background, cannot contemplate certain behavioral orientations are introduced into this free-for-all social network.

Facebook is time-consuming, and it is the main reason for getting fewer marks in exams day by day and it destroys the written rules of any language. I formed a habit of using the short form in my writing and verbal communication because of “Facebook chat.”

Many new words like lol, ROFL, lmao, etc got added to my dictionary. You have become “U,” Life has become “if,” expressions turned into smilies and even Facebook decoded into “FB!” I still remembered the moment when I got scolded by one of my teachers for writing such short forms in my final exams, during exam period.

It has become an uncomfortable situation for all Facebook folks’ to make a balance between online time and study time. I have lots of friends who have quit Facebook due to a lack of attention to studying.

Smiles on their faces can be matched with those innocent lives that just got discharged from “Rehab.” It needs guts to come out of this addiction by deactivating our Facebook account and I am so happy to say I don’t have such guts!

We must learn to be prudent in whatever we do. Courtesy demands that we do not display all our pictures and videos to the public.

You can never tell where you will be tomorrow. The very picture you post today on your wall may be your undoing tomorrow.

That immodest picture you decided to post on Facebook today can be used by your (political) opponent or your rival tomorrow to tarnish your image and destroy whatever ambition or vocation you may have.

Before you put any of your pictures on Facebook, ask yourself whether you will be proud of such a picture in about thirty years. Again, common sense which as we do know is becoming increasingly uncommon among our youths, demands that it is not all that our friends suggest that we must carry out.

We must consult with our brains and consciences. We should be able to judge things critically. Our senses must be subjected to the dictates of pure reason. Once a picture is sent out there for the public, you can never retrieve it. Even if it is a few seconds, you can never imagine whose hands It will be in the next minute.

_Do not make a stupid mistake that will affect your integrity tomorrow. Be wise!

More so, I think we do not need a professor to educate us that our privacy ought to be cherished and preserved. But, even if we do not value our privacy, at least we should respect and preserve the privacy of our parents, of our family.

The idea of posting pictures of even our parent’s bedrooms for public assessment is, to say the least, unfair to them. There are some ‘face-bookers’ that the only part of their homes that the public does not know about is their toilet.

They have virtually snapped photos in every part of their homes and have posted them all on Facebook. This is a gross display of imprudence and unwitting advertisement of stupidity or just to be a bit fairer, an exhibition of teenage naivety.

Be reminded that Facebook is not a hundred percent secure, at least for now. For some of the users of Facebook especially the silly type, there is nothing called secret again for them. Visit their profile and you will be shocked for life.

Some use Facebook as their diary to keep a record of anything that happens to them in life, ranging from the first day they hugged the opposite sex, the first day they were flogged by their parents, the first day they were kissed by the opposite sex when they fall in and out of love, the first day their parents exchanged Mike Tyson- like blows at home and all.

Disgusting pieces of information that are not meant for the public are posted without any qualms.

I am sure that gradually a virus called ‘Facebookiosis,’ will soon begin to attack Facebook users. This virus will be responsible for the mass failure of students in exams, marriages, and of course fraud.

The virus is slowly and steadily changing the language of some users at an alarming rate. Very soon, many Facebook users, especially secondary school students, will be unable to spell simple English words.

Some students during examinations have had to cancel their papers so many times because of the use of slang and short forms of words. Some found themselves unconsciously writing ‘thot’ in place of ‘thought,’ ‘gud’ in place of ‘good,’ ‘but’ in place of ‘but,’ ‘U’ in place of ‘you.’

You know the rest! I am afraid to say that soon Facebook will invent its English language. While I may not have a problem with Facebook inventing its own English language, I am afraid that soon there will be a galaxy of West African Examination  Council  (WAEC) casualties. A friend of mine disclosed to me that soon, ‘WACO specialist hospital’ will be launched for WAEC and NECO victims.

One of the earliest symptoms found in those who may eventually be admitted into this hospital is a chronic obsession for Facebook which is visibly manifested in the victims’ phobia or utter hatred for her books, unwillingness to go on errands when online and suicidal intent when denied access to the Internet.

I think some of our youths are gradually becoming worthy candidates for a psychiatrist or spiritual home as the case may be. More so, some users of Facebook especially teenagers see nothing wrong in giving their phone numbers to people they have never met except on Facebook.

This is really injudicious! Some others even permanently make available their home numbers with a vivid description of their houses on Facebook. This is risky as you can never tell who may be interested in paying a special visit to your home in the middle of the night, uninvited! Let us use our common sense.

A young girl who has an exam to write but prefers to use her time for Facebook may only be digging her academic grave and that may be ‘the beginning of her end.’ There is time for everything under the sun.

A time to be online and a time to be offline, a time to read, and a time to browse, a time to face your Facebook, and a time to back off your Facebook. I wish you all the best as you face your books and use your time wisely!

ALSO, READ How to Deal with a Drop in Your Teen’s Grades

Originally posted 2021-03-19 18:43:15.