Facebook: Is it really your choice?

So, even though I am technically not creating these posts in chronological order (in the order that they were invented), I wanted to begin my blog by discussing the effects that Facebook has had on consumer behavior and our everyday lives. This decision is based solely on the fact that Facebook is forcing us to go through a major change with our pages by making us change our entire format to Timeline (can you tell that I am not happy about it?).
As we all know, Facebook is a website that was created to keep people connected to not only their friends but also to the rest of the world. Facebook is said to let you express yourself; your opinions, likes/dislikes, friends, interests, your location (which in my opinion, is kind of creepy), your relationship status (f.b.o.= facebook official), and pretty much anything else you want people to see (and some things that you don't want people to see). Facebook makes it seem like you are the one in control, you can look at things that you want to look at and avoid things that you want to avoid; why, then, are we being forced to conform to something that we may dislike? Since we are having to go through this change on what has come to be our social life-line, I have begun thinking more in depth about what else is out of our control as consumers using Facebook.

When you log on to Facebook, it brings you to your homepage with status updates and if you look closely, you will see advertisements strategically placed on the left hand side of your screen, right below birthdays and events. Coincidence? I think not! While I am not saying that Facebook is controlling our every thought with these advertisements, I am saying that they are trying to influence our consumer behavior for the clients that they are advertising for. They do this by using our Facebook to find our interests and strategically place ads that match our personality best. So, even though we may not realize it on a daily basis, this website that we all love and rely on so much is just like every other business; at the end of the day, they are trying to make money, and the way that Facebook makes money (since you do not have to pay to have a Facebook page) is to help other business get their word out in the world, and hopefully influence consumers to purchase that company's product or service.
In this day and age, strategic ways for influencing consumer behavior is all around us and (as I have been and will be stating with all of my blog posts) most of this increase can be credited to the technological advances that we (as consumers) have been experiencing in the past decade or so.
Until next time!