Is Facebook Superficial?
Elliot
Spix
What It's All
About
Social networking is almost
completely integrated into our lives
nowadays. Whether you use MySpace or Facebook, it is a great way to
stay in touch with friends and family. With these sites you are
able to create your own page where you can post anything from your
status to pictures of your friends. They help people stay in touch and
informed. You can set up events and advertise them to all of your
friends to ensure a good turnout. This all sounds good, but how much is
too much? Improper use of social networking sites such as Facebook and
other services can have negative effects on users as well as others:
wasted time, poor grades, and depression.
Facebook
Costs
Time
According to Facebook.com,
there are more than 300 million active users
that utilize the service provided. Of these 300 million people, only
about 150 million actually log in on any given day. These 150 million
people average about eight billion minutes spent each day; that's an
average of almost one hour per day per person. That is quite a bit of
time that could be spent physically interacting with other people, an
art that is tragically dying all too quickly. I am one of those people
who use Facebook, and I can tell you from my ow experiece that I find
it hard to stay on for more than ten minutes or so. I feel that there
are better things to do than stare at a monitor for hours on end having
an artificial conversation with someone. It can be much more productive
to actually give the person a phone call, or better yet, meet with them
and person and do something.
The wasted time not only takes
its toll on the users but the productivity of the economy as a whole.
If one were to spend time "Facebooking", as it were, rather thanworking
on the daily tasks in the work place, they would be costing their
employer money, and the business could suffer as a result. According to
Charlotte Ross i the London Evening Standard, the excessive Facebooking
in the work place can cost an economy an estimated 150 million pounds
every day.
What About
Grades?
As a student, I am as concerned
as most about my grades and GPA that I strive to maintain or revive as
is the unfortunate case. Studis have shown that social sites such as
Facebook can have adverse effects on the studies and grades that the
average student makes. In 2009, Aryn Karpinski of Ohio State conducted
a survey of 219 graduate and undergraduate students. Karpinski found
that those who used Facebook tended to have lower grades than those who
did not. In an article on UPI.com, Karpinski says, "Ourstudy shows that
those who use Facebook spend less time studying. Every generation has
its distractions, but I think Facebook is a unique phenemenon. It is
the difference between an A and a B."
Can Facebook
Cause Stress?
Worrying about our grades and
how well we do in class can add quite a bit of stress into an already
stressful lifestyle that the average student endures. From worrying
about your next midterm exam to wondering what others may think of you,
it's amazing that more people don't experience symptoms of depression
than they do. Why
would you want to compound the stress anymore? Studies have shown can
enhance the problem and lead to depression in teens especially young
girls. Rumors are no fun and can be dertrimental to one's reputation.
It is hard enough when people tell each other in the hallways; it has
the potenial to spread like a fire and burn anyone that it touches. Add
the speed and ease of the internet into the mix, and that fire can
easily become a wildfire. When a rumor is passed directly from person
to person, it has the potential to do damage, but tends to fade out in
time. Whan a means of mass media enters the story, the person can be
subject to seeing it over and over again forcing them to relive the
experience. Ths can cause the person to snowball into depression. As I
recall, there was a recent case in which a woman was tried for the
murder of her daughter's friend after a series of false posts drove the
girl deep into depression tragically ending in suicide.
Who's
On
the Other Side?
Another key problem with
sociallizing this way is that you can never be one hundred percent sure
one hundred percent of the time that the peson that you are talking
with is indeed the person that you think it there. In the tragic case
that was listed above with the girl who ended her own life, the mother
pretended to be some guy interested in the girl then dumped her after
some period of time devastating her. Internet networking also allows
people to see you without necesarily knowing you. This makes you very
suceptible to internet based stalking if you will. You can create an
account with false information and false networks and potentially talk
to anyone. Also people can get your login information and do some
damage that way. I know that one of my friends left his login
information in and someone else got on and had some fun with the
account. It took my friend a week to streighten up the confusion that
was caused.
What's the
Point?
I am not sitting here telling
you that social networking if the root of all evil and should be
avoided at all costs. But rather you should know the dangers that exist
with excessive use and low standards on how you use the service.
Facebook is a great way to stay in touch with distant friends and
relatives, but it should not be the center of your social life.
Facebook and other such networking sites should always come second to
more important things such as your studies. It is simply not healthy to
sit in front of your computer and talk with someone in the next room
over. In moderation and in proper use, the sevices that are provided by
Facebook can be great, but should never run your life.
Works Cited
Ross, Charlotte.
"Facebook's a Waste of Time- Get Used to It." London Evening Standard.
Web. 13 Oct. 2009.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23414075-facebooks-a-waste-of-time---get-used-to-it.do
"Statistics." Faceook. Facebook, 2009. Web. 13 Oct. 2009.
http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics
"Study Says Facebook Can
Impact Studies." United Press International, 12 Apr. 2009. Web.13 Oct.
2009.
http://www.upi.com
"Too Much Social Networking
Linked to Depression!" Rediff News, 12 Feb. 2009. Web. 13 Oct. 2009.
http://www.rediff.com
Pictures Cited
Anti-Facebook Image
http://interkulti.eu/myvision/images/stories/anti-facebook.png
Facebook Image
http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/object3/912/107/n46463435942_94.jpg
Drop
Me a Line:
es01200@GeorgiaSouthern.edu
Last Revised November 9, 2009
