Most people have been raising concern about the impact that Facebook has on the society. Now the founding president of Facebook, Sean Parker is raising similar concerns about Facebook. He even said in an interview that he was not aware of what he was doing when they were promoting the social media platform. A key objective that they wanted to achieve when creating the platform was they could consume as much time of the users. Also, they ensured that when the user was on the social platform, they had their conscious attention as much as possible.
Mr. Parker became famous in the technology sector because of his involvement in the development of Napster, a file sharing service. It was Parker who introduced Facebook to Silicon Valley. He put the idea by Mark Zuckerberg in front of big-time investors, and this was a critical step to what Facebook is today.
A key fact that he identifies that made him unable to comprehend the consequences of the site is the number of users who would ultimately start using it. It is because when billions of people sign up for a network, it changes the relationship that an individual has with society. You will also need to sign up and become active to be in touch with your friends already using the site. It is something that Mr. Parker had foreseen. When Facebook was just getting going, some people would approach him and say that they were not members of the platform. He would answer them back telling them that they will join soon.
The founding president describes Facebook as a time sink. Even though this was an objective during the development of the platform, Mr. Parker is not happy with the results. It is because the use of Facebook is lowering the productivity of different individuals. He is even worried about the effects that the use of Facebook has on the children in society. There is no doubt that it is taking much of the time that children have which they could have used for more productive activities. Facebook is preventing people from participating in social activities as they did before. It is because someone will assume they are still connecting with their friends. The result will be a loss of the benefits that individuals enjoyed by meeting physically with their friends and having some quality time together.
Dil Bole Oberoi
