Why Facebook Is Bad for People?

Yiling Zhang

English 101

Professor Kumar

4/29/2015

Why Facebook Is Bad For People

        Every night, before I go to bed, I check my timeline to see if anyone new has friended me. Tonight, I notice that one of my friends has checked in at our favorite restaurant and tagged herself and her date. She also added a photo of their meal on her status update. I personally do not do this, but recently, I feel like this it is a routine all too familiar to most Facebook users. The whole idea of Facebook all began from the mind of a young man named is Mark Elliot Zuckerberg. From then on, our lives have  completely changed in some way and we entered into a new age which I call the era of technology. Instead of mailing letters, people could use Facebook and instead of flying out of town to visit family, people could just Skype. While social networking sites like Facebook, make people’s lives easier in some ways, there are also many negative consequences of using Facebook . Some of these problems include Facebook users becoming addicted, Facebook users who lacked social skills of talk face-to-face because of addiction and issues with fake Facebook ID users. Therefore, there are things that can be done to prevent these problems from happening.

After Mark Elliot Zuckerberg and his roommate created the social networking site, Facebook, it became the hottest online communication tool in America.On Mach 31, 2013, the number of active Facebook users was 845 million (Zeevi, par. 6). Facebook became extremely popular in just a matter of months. However there are also many people who hate Facebook. According to the Amplicate research website, in 2013, about 1,296,672 of Facebook users which is about 81% of total users, hate Facebook (Screen 1). I believe there must be some reasons for that. On one hand, Facebook expands the social circle, convenience, while the negative side of addicting, risking personal information, lack the social skills of take face to face and so on. In 2012, American Facebook users used their accounts almost 8 hours per month (Fitzgerald, par. 1), which means every month they spend 1/3 day in Facebook. I think we can use this 1/3 day to go visit our friends or we can use this time for a workout with our families. Everything has its positive and negative sides, but the problem is that we have to compare which side has more influence so that we can avoid it. In this case, the negative side is more over the positive side, and it is not good for our daily lives.

On one hand, Facebook is a brilliant idea to bring people together in order to build relationships with people. First, I can add as many friends as I want on my Facebook. In this way, I can expend my social circle. I can also know a lot of friends who are from the whole world but not just America. Second, Facebook also provides a lot of conveniences for me to communicate easily. I can see my friends’ statuses and pictures without staying with them all day, and I can still know how they are by just looking at their updated information. Ienjoy reading different people’s stories that they posted on Facebook, and I just feelwhatever emotions that they feel.People will be stronger if their friends care about them and comfort them when they’re sad.Different from the old days, I can chat with my friends online anytime and anywhere, or leave messages on Facebook, so my friends can immediately see it. Sometimes I even forget that friends on Facebook are different from the friends in the real life.Third, because many companies put their advertisements on Facebook, I can see discounts without looking them up(Hasan, pars. 3-21).

On the other hand the social networking programs also bring the negative effect to people, so Facebook users need to control the time limit to go on to Facebook. There are hundreds of millions of people are addicted to Facebook. It just becomes an issue in our society today, and it doesn’t matter which fault to blame either people’s self-control or the creation of Facebook. Since the problem does exist, it just beyond the “who to blame game”, but to prevent of addicting to Facebook by limit the time that spend on it. It just has people’s undivided attention no matter what. People spent most their time on Facebook even more than the time that they would spend with their girlfriend or boyfriend, and people don’t think social networking as distracting as it is. Just like me, every time when my mom told me don’t eating while using the computer, I never care about it, but I have to admit that it was a distraction.I have read an article which was talking aboutdisadvantages of using Facebook which tells that students who use Facebook too much get bad marks in their exams unless they are too smart (Hasan, par. 28). But people seemed forget about internet is different from real worldbecause some people feel secure to tell secret online instead of share it in real life. So that’s why people need to be careful about spending too much time on it. There is a limit due to it, it isn’t right to “live in” Facebook because is not a center of our lives but an entertainment to help us live in better lives, so we have to have a control over it, don’t like it drag you down.

Facebook lacked the developmentof social skill which is to talk face-to-face, so the limitation of using Facebook is necessary.  A study by Doctor of Psychology, Cecilie Schou Andreassen found that “people who are anxious and socially insecure use Facebook more than those with lower scores on those traits, probably because those who are anxious find it easier to communicate via social media than face-to-face” (Andreassen, par. 4).You may have seen some people around you go on to Facebook all the time, and when you try to talk with them, their minds are just some elsewhere. Many people try to forget about their real lives and imagine that they are having a “wonderful live”on Facebook in order to avoid being face-to-face. That’s how people started losing the ability to talk with others. What’s wrong with ignored the people who is sitting next to you, and trying to chat with your online best friend? Well, there is something wrong with that. How can a person being carrying and kind on line, but being cruel to the people who are in his real lives? I have seen a schoolmate who has hundreds of friends on Facebook, but he is usually alone at school. Since he doesn’t know how to react to people who around him, and doesn’t know how to work with other students, he has no friends in a real life. Even the convenience of Facebook brings benefits to people. However, chatting with friends on Facebook just missed the part of people’s connection to each other, which face-to-face provides. Therefore, Facebook users need to avoid spend too much time on Facebook will lose the ability of communication in real life.