Why are people addicted to social networking sites like Facebook? (Project)

Problem: That kids are spending more time on social communicating websites
Reason: Our reason being choosing this is because we think Facebook affects the way people behave. It also is bad for hygiene as you sit indoors all day, and stare at a screen/iPhone (etc.). As that is just one of our concerns.

As Facebook keeps track of everything you post, every chat you have with others, birthdays, events, etc. It can be dangerous?         

Benefits:
- Chat with friends around the world
- Being more social with friends
- Can play games that you can’t find anywhere else


Costs:
- Spend more time indoors
- Facebook can keep your personal information
- Giving away information to companies
- The student gets lower grades
- Damages real life socialization
- Get addicted not only to games but also the web. And it will possibly destroy how you live.



Social networking is the easiest way to communicate, and you basically lose everything that school teaches you. When on Facebook, you become uncontrollable, and you start trolling on people’s profiles posting rude things.


Statistics:

At the moment, there are 500 million people who actively use Facebook. Averagely, people spend 700 million minutes in a month on Facebook. People have an average number of friends at 130.

Yes, it can be fun. There are many things you can do on Facebook playing applications and games. There are 900 million people who interact with event, applications, games, community pages. etc)

But Facebook is becoming more of a problem because when someone creates a post, or comments on your posts, people sometimes get really offended, and take it hard. So in real life, there could be severe consequences. That is also a type of bullying (cyberbullying). E.g. There was a high school student who had an account on Facebook who was constantly getting hated on, bullied, being teased etc. She eventually killed herself because she couldn’t take it anymore. The people who kept teasing her ended up getting arrested.



Also when you create a Facebook account, there is a piece of text which you are “supposed” to read and agree to, but let me ask you; How many people read that statement to agree on. I bet you in our school at the moment, no one has read that statement. And that statement provides information which could be pretty crucial if you ask me. Facebook could possibly sell your information to companies without telling you. In fact, the account and privacy settings are pretty much useless.

Did you know? People are so attached to Facebook that when someone just comes up to you and says; your Facebook page is so boring, it has 0 comments, 0 photos etc. People will get offended. And that could affect your social life with them. A college student was relaxing over the weekend, and was excited to see his friend come from Seattle to visit. But he got offended straight after she said; your Facebook is so boring. He then replied straight away with: “So is your face”. A typical phrase teenagers use.

Addiction

After you have used Facebook for 2-6 months, you will start to realize there isn’t much left to do neglecting that fact, people still go on Facebook everyday during class, instead of studying, being in the library, while watching a movie at home you will have your laptop on your lap. This person says: He has many friends who should be studying for an upcoming test constantly press F5 (PC) (For Mac it is Command R) to refresh their Facebook Wall just to see if there is anyone who has posted anything. The most common thing people do after spending 6 months playing lame games etc. Posting photos, updating their status every 10 minutes, commenting on other’s walls, post inappropriate things, stalking , etc. And when you post inappropriate comments, there are so many people who will spread it around, to their friends, to your mutual friends, to everyone. Your friend tells your friend, that tells their friend, that tells their friends. And eventually it would be possible that you would be famous in their community for being an ignorant/ wet blanket.



This is a picture of where Facebook is mostly used in the world;




Also a problem with Facebook users are that once a friend request appears and you don’t know them, people usually accept. (But I myself go to their profiles and see if I recognize them, if not I would decline the request). But for the average Facebook user, they simply check for mutual friends and press accept. Just because they want to brag about they want to pretend that they have more friends. I have seen many people who are on my friends list that I know add people that they don’t know who are on my friends list. E.g. Someone on my friend list only had 60 mutual friends between me and him that he actually knew. But he just basically stalked my profile and looked at my friends list and pressed add everyone (which he doesn’t know). And now we have 179 “mutual friends” between us. And that is a risk-factor because you are adding people whom you do not know.

If you were at school, and there was only 1 hour left until you could get home. I can assure you 90% of the people who have Facebook will go on to check their wall posts. Instead you could just wait 1 hour till you get home.



Technology

Now in the modern world, children are so spoilt. Everyone you see most of the time will at least have these following: A PS3/ Xbox360, NDS/PSP, iPod Nano/3Gs, iPhone 3Gs, iPhone 4, iPad. Most of the people will have at least those items. Don’t you think we are spoilt these days? And on the iPhone’s it is so handy that you just need to slip in your pocket to bring it everywhere. So then you could go on Facebook 24/7 and you will constantly see people on the streets plugged in with earphones and tapping around on their iPhone screen. The technology is pretty overused in the modern day that we are in today.



Bibliography:
http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics
I used this source because the statistics come from Facebook.
http://www.smartplanet.com/technology/blog/thinking-tech/bullying-and-the-unintended-consequences-of-facebook/3638/ I used this link’s example in one of my PPT slides, because it is from CBSNews
http://media.barometer.orst.edu/media/storage/paper854/news/2009/03/05/Forum/Facebook.Use.With.Caution.Or.Suffer.Consequences-3660603.shtml I used this link because I was searching for another example of social networking consequences, but came up with this. And I have to say, that my opinions are the same as his, and I believe that his information is true, by observation of people in my Facebook friend’s list