Unseen Passage: Youngster Quit Facebook

A youngster quit Facebook in December after spending over three years on the social networking site. With that one act he bid a silent adieu to more than 300 contacts that he had added to his account during the period. Like almost everyone from his ”friend’s circle,” the 20 year old was a regular on the service; visiting it everyday to post photos and status updates but last week a new feature on Facebook called Timeline forced him to reconsider the pros and cons of being on the networking site.

Everyone has some skeletons in their closet and I am just not comfortable with Facebook digging up and displaying all the facets of my life on a bulletin board,’ says this youngster who joined the network in July 2007 while he was in class11.

Facebook, you see, had compressed the time he spent on the site and arranged it in chronological order and while he initially liked the new neatly organized scrapbook-like feature he wasn’t happy to reveal posts from the past those that until recently was hidden under layers and layers of recent updates. Just clicking on a date on the timeline could transport his friends back in time and enable them to view every embarrassing comment link or photo he had posted on his profile.

“I think it’s a recipe for disaster,” he says. “In 2007, I had some wall posts which seemed appropriate at the time but now after a lapse of four years, I have moved on and don’t want them to be openly displayed for all to see.

He is not alone. Many users, worried about how Facebook activity could possibly affect their offline lives, are choosing to commit “Facebook suicide.” While some have privacy concerns others feel that the site that was meant to bring them closer to their friends actually does the opposite- it reduces their friendship to something superficial.

Poking and liking are not enough to keep a friendship going,’ says a business analyst. Having quit Facebook three years ago, she prefers meeting her “real” friends face-to-face, instead of reading their trite posts online. ”On Facebook, people hype everyday issues including what they ate and where they went on a daily basis,” says this analyst who continues to use Twitter.

“Facebook has become a time sink and it could not justify the time I spent on it, ”he says,”I spend more time calling up friends or relatives over the phone now……I also go out and meet people whenever possible and have a good offline life. I do not regret the change. “Today, Facebook has 800 million users of which 37 million are Indians. The site has become an online identity for most, and many of those who decided to quit cannot overcome the withdrawal symptoms and return. Facebook, fully aware of its addictive powers, facilitates this return by allowing users to ‘deactivate’ their accounts but continues to store information on its servers so that they can return from their ‘break’, whenever they wish.

Similarly, an engineering student quit Facebook last December four years after joining it. One fine day, he exported all the data from his account into a little zip file and hit the delete button.

I realized that when it came to my friends who really mattered, I could actually keep in touch with them over the phone or by meeting them in real life,’ he wrote in his blog.

Q. On the basis of your reading of the above passage, answer the following questions in 30-40 words each:

1. What feature of Timeline takes away a person’s privacy?
2. What was the youngster’s initial reaction to Timeline?
3. Why did the youngster change his mind later?
4. What does term ‘Facebook suicide’ mean?

Answers

1. By clicking on a date on the Timeline one can see the posts, the embarrassing comments and thoughts, photos and links that a person has put on his profile in the past. This takes away his privacy.
2. Initially the youngster found it to be well–organized as it had scrap–book like features. But only later he realized that it stores all the past information which can be seen by your friends if they go on to Timeline.
3. The youngster changed his mind later because he realized that an information or poster put in the past may have been relevant then but today it may not be. People move on in life and sometimes they do not want their past to haunt them, they do not want their friends to see that and comment.
4. Many people have started feeling that their Facebook activity could affect their real life. So they are getting out of Facebook. This is called ‘Facebook suicide’.

Q. On the basis of your reading of the above passage, answer the following questions:

1. What does the youngstar talk about in the passage?
   1. Life with addiction of using facebook
   2. His life experiance with and without facebook
   3. Benefits of using facebook
   4. All of the above
2. What made him rethink his decision?
   1. facebook activity
   2. Hype created for everyday issues through facebook
   3. Facebook timeline
   4. None of the above
3. Which of the following statement is not true.
   1. Facebook has compresses time.
   2. It is not easy to resist Facebook.
   3. It seems to justify our time using Facebook and making new friends.
   4. The site is an online identity for everyone.
4. What new terms does the speaker coin in the passage?
   1. A receipe for disaster.
   2. Facebook suicde.
   3. Both 1 and 2
   4. None of the above
5. __________ enables the people to view the updates from past.
   1. Scrapbook like features.
   2. Everything arragned in chronolgical order.
   3. Posts in layer.
   4. All of the above.
6. The same meaning of the word ‘feature’ is _________.
   1. feat
   2. variety
   3. characteristic
   4. type
7. A word from paragraph one for ‘advantage’ is:
   1. adieu
   2. reconsider
   3. pros
   4. comfortable
8. The opposite of ‘overcome’ is _________.
   1. conquer
   2. field
   3. yield
   4. fear
9. Which is word is an anotonym of the word ‘cease’:
   1. trite
   2. lapse
   3. continues
   4. displayed
10. What changes were observed in life of the youngster.
    1. Meeting friends in real like became possible.
    2. Time for calling friends become easier and possible.
    3. The boy is able to do more outing.
    4. All of the above.
11. Why does the youngster called facebook ‘a recipe for disaster’.
    1. Lives are affected offline
    2. It weakens the bond of friendship
    3. People have some privacy concern
    4. All of the above​
12. What comes as an advantage with a disadvantage in Facebook.
    1. Its updates are in chronological order.
    2. Hype is created on Facebook.
    3. It facilitates the return of user.
    4. All of the above.

Answers

1. His life experiance with and without facebook.
2. Facebook timeline.
3. It seems to justify our time using Facebook and making new friends.
4. Facebook suicide.
5. Scrapbook like features.
6. characteristic.
7. pros
8. yield
9. continues
10. All of the above.
11. All of the above.
12. It facilitates the return of user.