Recently, social networks have become extremely popular. People, especially teenagers, waste a huge amount of time looking at insignificant photos of people at Facebook, or just chatting to friends who they see every day. Is it normal to see this as something quotidian?
In cities, nearly everyone, except very young and old people have Facebook. Some of them just use it to keep in contact with far away friends, or just to keep up with what some members of the family are up to. But there is a problem: a part of Facebook users are becoming addict until the point of affecting school grades and social life in a negative way, without including sleepless nights and people just ‘talking’ to each other by facebook chat. Is this worth it? Is it better than rather talking with your friends somewhere?
Here are some real opinions from some students:
´´ I’ve outsourced my social life exclusively to Facebook Inc. Hence, it doesn’t really matter if I spend a lot of time on Facebook, because it substitutes for face time as well and has made my life more organized and efficient.``
´´ I think that there are three kinds of Facebook users. One the kind that is just keeping in touch with long distance friends. Two the older relative just trying to keep up with their niece. And three the kind that gets all dressed up to just take a Facebook photo. Personally I don’t want to take the chance that I’ll end up a number three and frankly I find the risk too much and the satisfaction that I would get out of it to low.``
´´ well i actually have stopped using Facebook by changing my password, but now i just find other ways to distract myself. ``
´´It’s horrible, but so hard to stop! I know how much time it takes up, but when I get sick of homework or something, it’s too easy to just click, click, log in. And then you’re stuck mindlessly on it, and don’t realize the time passing… it really is ‘addicting,’ but I’m not sure if it’s really an addiction. Distracting, for sure though. But I don’t want to deactivate mine, mostly out of this weird fear of missing something happening. Or if someone puts up bad pictures of me. Which is stupid, because I don’t party hard or anything. I wish Facebook had a time limit that one could set, so I could say, ‘okay, today I’m only going to go on for 35 minutes total,’ and then could actually adhere to it``
As a Facebook user, I must admit that I’m totally addicted to it. It is just too easy to log in while you are using your computer and it’s so addictive that you even waste time reading or seeing comments about people you maybe don’t even know! Facebook can be indeed very distracting, especially for teenagers, to whom the need of making a constant use of this social network has eventually corroded their minds. It is true that this type of addictions can affect student’s grades; as they spend more time gossiping and using Facebook Chat than studying. Moreover, teenagers tend to adopt the abbreviations in their language, because of the constant use of chats. This can result in spelling errors in student’s writing.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, social networks can be prejudicial because of the fact that other people can have an access to private information about you. This can lead to extreme cases like harassments and threats. As well, all this open information about you can be seen for example by workers from the human resources department of some businesses, as they can discover information about possible new workers, and reject some of the candidates.
People tend to use them to keep in contact with friends or family which lives in other countries. This use of social networks is positive, as it is free and you can be up to what other people do, even if they are of the other side of the world. Teenagers nowadays tend to use it to talk with persons they daily see, and more often, with people they are shy to establish a conversation normally. In this sense Facebook can be really negative, as it gives people the chance to show a fake image of themselves to others, which again can lead to serious problems between the persons involved.
As if Facebook in computers wasn’t enough, smartphones such as iphone and blackberry enhance this addiction. They give you the opportunity to be available on chats and to be up with any new publication in social networks.
In my opinion, society is guilty for this issue, as nowadays it is said that you are no one if you aren’t a Facebook user, or you don’t own a smartphone. Society has made us achieve the point where the majority of people use constantly these networks, and although we know it’s addictive and prejudicial for us, we are strongly attached to technology.
As a conclusion, social networks such as Facebook can be in some way useful to keep contact with people, but can also influence us in a negative way and make us become totally dependent on them.
Ana Las Hayas
I must say I have a Facebook account and I check it every day. Although some day I don't log onto my computer, my phone has Facebook too. A curious thing I found out some weeks ago was that Vodafone have just launched out a phone which is especially designed for the Facebook application. My grandmother didn't know what Facebook was, and she bought this white, thin phone. Now she's terrified and doesn't know what to do or why she's "uploading her status". So this is a clear example of how Facebook is now starting to be part of our day-to-day life. On one hand, Facebook can be really useful to keep in touch with friends which you can't see frequently, and so you are up to date with what they've been doing recently. On the other hand, Facebook is pretty much gossip. Although some people might not accept it, everyone looks at pictures or others' walls and start to read. However, obviously they have no interest about what's going on but they don't stop reading! There are so many social networks such as twitter, tumblr, tuenti...which will eventually fade and no one will remember! The same thing happened with Windows Messenger! About 5 years ago, each day I opened it and I immediately started chatting with my school friends, which I'd seen about half an hour ago. Now, if it weren't for my email address, I wouldn't remember the password.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion facebook has positive and negative sides to it. As a member of it I admit that I was quite addicted to it, and that I used to log in whenever I could. But now this addiction has worn out, and I hardly use it now, only if I need to tell someone I don't have on my phone something, or if I want to talk to friends that don't live in Spain. In this way it is very useful. On the other hand, many teenagers tend to stay hours in front of the computer having a look at people's comments, photos.. I used to be like this in a way but then I realised that it's in fact a real waste of time. Therefore, I hardly use it now, because I don't think I'm interested in other people's life.
ReplyDeleteAna Adan
Addiction can be viewed as a “continued involvement with a substance or activity despite the negative consequences associated with it”. According to this definition, anything is potencially addictive if we don’t use it in a rational way. Television, food, computer games...can become an addiction, although this doesnt’t mean that they are harmful per se.
ReplyDeleteFacebook can be a usefull tool as a complement to our social life, not a substitute. It provides a quicker way of communicating with our far-away friends or family, it allows us to exchange pictures and videos immediately... Basically, it makes our life easier. The problem starts when the user changes his habits and, instead of living his normal life, he decides to spend more and more time in this social network. When his duties and relationships become affected, then we can talk about addiction.