Personally, Facebook started as a
way for me to talk to other people easier. It was a way for me to stay in
contact, share ideas, and network with other people. It started out with me
making friends with people I immediately made contact with, and who I regularly
hung out with and talked to. As the days turned to weeks, and weeks turned to
months, and even from months to years, I slowly started accumulating large
masses of "friends" who I've never met before, or would ever meet.
I
started using Facebook as my primary social networking site when I was in the
9th grade. It was fun being able to see
all the different people. In school, when you want to be as popular as someone
else, as cool as someone else, or party like that one kid, it's really
interesting to see how they really act and talk (as apparent on Facebook). When
you talk to people, meet new peers with the same interests as you, it becomes
intoxicating! Everyone talking about the same thing, no matter if it was bad or
good, as long as it was addressed it was talked about!
I
met a lot of great friends thanks to Facebook that I didn't even know went to
the same school as me! I made a couple of best friends because of the constant
communication that Facebook allowed. It helped me talk about things with other
people, that I thought might be embarrassing in real life.Growing up with such
a huge social networking site was beneficial for a large part of my life... But
towards the end of my senior year the site Facebook, started to become a hassle
to maintain, hard to keep friendships, keep up with the changing times, and
hear all of the ignorant complaints and "Facebook Fights".
Presently,
over 950 million people in the world have an active Facebook account (meaning
they log in at least once in a month), and over 500 million people log onto Facebook
on a daily basis. This means that almost 1/7 of the world's population has a Facebook.
Over twice the population of the US has a Facebook! To me, this is an
incredible amount! Considering China and India both won't allow their citizens
to have a Facebook account! Over two million people each week join Facebook,
and help maintain the 200 million accounts that Facebook entices people to
make. More than five million kids, aged 10 and under have a Facebook account.
The minimum age for a Facebook account is thirteen. There were over 7.5 million
kids under the age of thirteen that had a Facebook account a year ago, imagine
what that number is today; probably well over 9 million! My little brother who
is now 14, has had a Facebook for over two years! It was found out that these
accounts were not only violating the sites terms and conditions, but that it
caused an increase in reports of serious threats like predators and bullies.
About
20-30% of Facebook Users are "power users". This means that more
people recieve messages, friend requests, 'likes', and are tagged in more
pictures, than they put in. The average Facebook user 'likes' their friend's Facebook
content about 14 times per month, while they get their own content 'liked'
about 20 times per month. The thought of the friend of my friend is a friend,
and the enemy of my enemy is my friend, is not just simply a rule, but also is
an exception on Facebook It was tested, that the average Facebook user is very
loosely, if not completely detached from their 'friends' on Facebook. Only
about 5% of users on Facebook take advantage of hiding ones newsfeed from them
self because of arguments, different views, or simply the ignorance! If the
average Facebook user became friends with their friend's friends', then they
could easily reach over 150,000 other users on Facebook. If you had over 900
friends on Facebook, you could potentially reach over 8 million users on Facebook.
"Facebook's" popularity is far from decreasing, in fact, more and
more people use Facebook each year. There is over a 29% increase in the amount
of active users, than that of last year.
Some
positive aspects of Facebook can be found when the definition of Facebook is
explored into more detail. Facebook can not only help people relax, but can
also improve your heart rate, and decrease stress levels. In a study, students
were observed in three different situations: looking at panoramic landscapes,
doing complicated math equations, and using Facebook. The first situation
caused the students to feel relaxed, the math equations made the students feel
stressed, and the time on Facebook cause them to show high levels of
attractiveness and arousal. Facebook can also help get a person a job! When the
person about to give an interview happens to be on Facebook, looks you up, and
sees you doing a keg-stand on your profile picture, don't expect to get that
interview! Facebook can help boost self-esteem by making them feel good about
themselves, simply by looking at their Facebook wall! Research even shows that
even a 10-minute break for Facebook makes employees happier and much more
productive. In a study, the people who were allowed to use Facebook for ten
minutes on break, versus people who were allowed no break, were 40% more
productive, and the people who were allowed to do anything for a 10 minute
break except for Facebook, versus the group who could use Facebook, felt a 16%
decrease in productivity. Finally, Facebook can also help get you a college
degree! Research shows that students who were active on Facebook were more
likely to stay in school and earn the degree they have been seeking!
It
is easily seen that there are both positive and negative aspects to joining a
site like Facebook. From the lack of privacy and security, to the increase in
self-esteem, productivity, and heart rate! It's everyone's own independent
choice to join a social networking site. Personally, I choose to not be a part
of Facebook, because I believe soon, it will not be something that everyone
uses and likes anymore, but will be too large for us to control, and will
eventually become a problem instead of the solution to social networking
problems in the past.
