Facebook leads way to a future of time wasting

Last Saturday, I made a Facebook status asking my friends which of two audiobooks on atheism I should buy. This sparked, within the space of about 90 minutes, an 85-comment long debate on the existence of God and the freedom of speech on religious matters. The status elicited impassioned comments from people in London to Wellington to right here in Wanganui.

Despite getting reasonably frustrated at times, I sat there thinking about how fantastic it is that it's even possible to have that sort of discussion with such a plethora of people and beliefs - with such ease.

Earlier this week, I considered for the umpteenth time deleting my Facebook account as I struggle to limit my time on it. Having the application on my iPad makes it an especially tough website to resist when the alternative is a couple of hours extra study.

The next day, or as I would be obliged to say if I were writing this on Facebook, "nek minnit" (Facebook slang for "next minute"), I received a group message from the four members of my debating team and suddenly Facebook was back in my good books. Being able to have a five-person conversation with friends from all around the country, on demand, is one of those facets of the website which makes it nigh on impossible to turn my back on my account and delete it.

Then, just an hour before writing this column, Facebook wasted another 30 minutes of my life - admittedly, in a less direct sense this time. It came in the form of myriad friends urging me to switch on television's channel three. I succumbed to watching New Zealand's attempt to out-class Jersey Shore, with The GC. I will likely get lambasted for this at school, but I must say, the sordid and ghastly half-hour I was treated to was almost enough alone to make me click the fabled delete button.

Facebook and social media in general is, whether we like it or not, an integral part of our lives. Mobile applications place it at our finger tips. Often a Facebook message or a tweet is easier, cheaper and reaches more people than a text message or a phone call.

I can have group discussions with an array of people from different classes at school in which we can share ideas and links in abundance. I can find out what time my football match is, what the result of a debate in another continent was in real-time with live-tweeting of each and every argument that is made.

And that's not to mention the obvious attraction for my parents' generation, who can suddenly feel as though they're "in the know" about what the kids are into these days. Admittedly, my mum does refuse to make herself an account, but she knows my younger sister's password, which comes in handy when she wants to check up on my elder sister in Auckland.

But to me, people who try to argue definitively and absolutely that Facebook is either good or bad are deluding themselves. It may sound like shameful fence-sitting (which I can assure you, I have not and will not do in these columns), but that's the reality.

It's fun, but addictive. It's social, but it's unproductive. It's thought-provoking, but it's dramatising. It It's educational, but dangerous (especially given the lax privacy rules and age restrictions on the site). That's what it is. None of those characteristics are exclusive of each other and a quick scroll down the "News Feed" shows that.

And to be completely honest, it's almost all of those characteristics and more which keep the application on my iPad, keep me logging in and which will be the underlying reason for Facebook's gargantuan value of up to US$100 billion after its IPO next Friday.

James Penn is deputy head boy at Wanganui High School and was a member of the New Zealand team that competed in the World School Debating Championships.