Should Germany do the same as China and Vietnam and shut down Facebook?

It all started when I read a quite sarcastic article on the webpage of Financial Times Deutschland that is called “Shut down Facebook”.

http://www.ftd.de/it-medien/medien-internet/:das-letzte-schaltet-facebook-ab/50038759.html

Apparantly, the Chinese government is blocking Facebook since July this year and also for people in Vietnam it is getting more and more difficult to access the webpage. And the Financial Times journalist thinks it is a fabulous idea and the only way to protect people from dumbing down (“Volksverdummung”), because nobody needs to know either when your friend is “off to bed” or the advice from Dr. Toast. Furthermore, the suspicion was raised that it was China itself who invented Facebook to stop the rest of the world from being economically productive. A great explanation of the fact why China is on the way to become the next superpower and why Vietnam is in a phase of economic revival.

Well, we all lerned in class that social networks like Facebook are useful when you are looking for a job or want to stay in touch with people. On the other hand, the great impact on our behaviour has been shown and it is a great way for any company, enterpreneur or even politican to be in a dialogue with potential and actual clients or voters. I found a nice article about that topic using HHL’s database Business Source Complete (Ebsco) that was published in a Journal called Accounting Today. It is called “The social networking revolution - You can't afford to ignore social media” and talks mainly about the benefits of Social Media Marketing.

This part is perfectly clear to me, but still I had the question in my mind if people who are using Facebook are really enjoying any benefits or just wasting their time. Personally, I consider it more as entertainment. If I have time, i check my account, if not that’s fine too. But a lot of people are different. Especially my Facebook friends who have a job and are not students are online all the time. How is that possible? And could they be more successful in their jobs if they were not online the whole day and comment everything? Luckily the Finacial Times article provided a little hint that a new survey has provided evidence to the hypothesis: who is not on facebook is more successful in his job.

Consequently, my next step was to look for that study. And it was quite easy to find more information about it. I can recommend the article that was published by the Welt, another big German newspaper.

http://www.welt.de/webwelt/article5187737/Facebook-Verweigerer-sind-erfolgreicher-im-Job.html

The psychologic institute of the University of Zurich conducted a study with 1,000 participants and came to the conclusion that people who are not on Facebook enjoy a better mental health, are more conscientious and focused as well as more successful in their working life. Another survey of the San Diego University came to the result that more that 57% of the US college students confessed that they are members of social networks to get attention, because of self expression and narcissism.

To refer back to the Financial Times article, maybe there are some right points besides the ironic criticism of Facebook. Maybe Germany could improve its economic productivity by shutting down Facebook or at least blocking it at the workplace. Then we would all be more successful in our jobs and contribute something to overcome the current economic crisis.

What would Mrs. Merkel think about that?

Kristin Büttner(M10)