Facebook: Destroying Our

Society

By: Michael Witkowski

 Social networking sites (SNSs) have taken the world by storm. They are

integrating themselves into everyone’s lives. It is turning modern Americans into very

lazy people. SNSs are making people believe that commenting on a post means they

are affecting the world. This is not the case. Just because someone comments on a

post, doesn’t mean they are participating in that activity. These SNSs have changed our

society to a point where we cannot go back to the old ways. One example of a SNS is

Facebook. Facebook allows people to make profiles for themselves, “accumulate

‘friends’” who can comment on each other’s pages, and view other people’s profiles

(Ellison, Steinfield, Lampe, 1143). It enables people to learn about anyone they choose

just by viewing their online profile. Although Facebook has positive effects, like helping

people with communication skills and allowing them to meet new people, it ultimately

has negative impact on society by being very addictive, reducing real-life social bonding

and participation, and having an issue with privacy.

Facebook was created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg and his fellow Harvard

roommates. Their focus was towards allowing college students to connect with one

other, allowing them to do projects without having to meet in person. The name,

Facebook, was taken from the sheets of paper distributed to freshmen, profiling

students and staff. In the first month of the program, half of the population at Harvard

had a Facebook account. In 2005, Facebook was a big success in the Ivy league

schools. After purchasing the Facebook.com address for two hundred thousand dollars,

Mark “launched a high school version” (Ellison, Steinfield, Lampe, 1144). They made

this version to separate the high school students from the college students. In 2006,

Facebook was being used in “over two thousand United States colleges” and was
ranked in the top ten most popular sites on the World Wide Web (Ellison, Steinfield,

Lampe, 1144). Facebook was made free to all people. So how does it make money?

The answer is simple, through all the ads that were over the site. By 2007, Facebook

achieved more than “twenty-one million members generating 1.6 billion views a day”

(Ellison, Steinfield, Lampe, 1144). In 2011, Facebook kept track of the amount of time

users spent online and it averaged out to “seven hundred billion minutes per month”

(Thompson, Lougheed, 88-89). Srivastava and Bhardwaj report on Facebook’s

December 2013 statistics, “1.23 billion users are using it worldwide while seven hundred

fifty-seven million uses log in daily” (Srivastava, Bhardwaj, 80-81). Out of all the

members it has acquired over the twelve years, a large amount of them are “between

the ages of eighteen and twenty-five years old” (Junghyun, Roselyn Lee, 359). This

shows the popularity Facebook has with the college community around the globe.

Some say that Facebook has a positive social effect because it helps them with

communication. In today’s society, not everyone is the same. There are introverts and

extroverts. Extroverts are people who have no problems talking to others face-to-face,

while introverts have trouble doing so. When someone is an introvert, they are usually

shy and awkward in social situations. Facebook helps solve this issue by replacing the

face-to-face with face-to-screen conversations. By doing so, there are no “pressures of

time and physical cues” which allowed people to “learn their social skills quickly” (Liu,

Yu, 677). Other features on Facebook like its online games help people learn social

skills, too. These games require “cooperation and interaction” which help people who

are shy and awkward in social situations, to start conversations with others (Liu, Yu,

677). Slowly but surely, with the help of Facebook, introverts are starting to break out of
their shell and meet the social requirements for today’s society. This is one of the big

reasons Facebook has such a positive impact. It provides introverts with a place to go

where they can improve on their social skills, while also expanding their friendships.

This is good because then they feel a “sense of belonging” and not as an outcast in

society (Liu, Yu, 677).

Another positive effect, is that Facebook allows someone to meet new people. It

was entirely designed for this reason. It gives people another way to “communicate and

socialize” (Srivastava, Bhardwaj, 80-81). One way Facebook does this is with its online

games. The games allow people to talk to others and get to know them on a personal

level. This type of relationship benefits someone because it helps them obtain strong

social support which can in turn help get “real–life assistance” or find supportive help

(Liu, Yu, 677). This support allows people to “enhance their psychological well-being”

(Liu, Yu, 677). Facebook also makes meeting new people online a lot easier to do than

in person. In the past couple of years, it has made itself into “college students’ everyday

lives” (Liu, Yu, 675) Since it requires the people to make an online profile of themselves,

someone can look at any of the profiles and see if they have any common interests with

that person. This is very helpful to college students because they are able to meet other

students who are on campus that can potentially help them with a specific field of study.

This contact would then help build a relationship from being online to real world.

Facebook as well helps us “transcend geographical boundaries” (Srivastava,

Bhardwaj, 80-81). It allows people to meet or keep in touch with someone who is on the

other side of the world. Since air travel is very expensive, it can be very hard for an

average salary person to afford plane tickets every time he or she wanted to see their
relatives, this is where Facebook comes in handy. Since Facebook has no membership

cost, anyone can have one, and if both the person and their relatives have a Facebook

account, then they are able to keep in touch with each other whenever they want. This

may also lead to new friendships because the relative’s friends may find a common

interest with that person and ultimately become friends.

With both those reasons Facebook seems like it’s very beneficial to our society,

but in reality Facebook actually has a negative impact. Studies have shown Facebook

to be very addictive. Extended usage can cause people to become addicted, which can

lead to their time being spent online rather than hanging out with their friends. It was

found that in Terri H. Chan’s, MPhil, study that the addiction was very prevalent in

young adults of the ages eighteen to twenty-five years old. A study by the International

Center of Media & the Public Agenda was done at the University of Maryland to see the

effects of social media when taken away for twenty-four hours. The study showed that

the “students were not able to function properly” without social media in their life

(Students Addicted to Social Media, 483). The symptoms they were feeling were exactly

the same feelings “associated with drug and alcohol addictions: In withdrawal,

Frantically craving, Very anxious, Extremely antsy, Miserable, Jittery, Crazy” (Students

Addicted to Social Media, 483). One of their students even came out saying, “I clearly

am addicted and the dependency is sickening” (Students Addicted to Social Media,

483). This started to worry the researchers about the effect Facebook was having on

people. That wasn’t all, it was even clear what gender it was effecting the most,

females. A “cross-sectional study” was done with two hundred fifty-seven teenagers that

found females being the “mediating role of preference for online social interaction”
(Srivastava, Bhardwaj, 84-85). The effects on males were very small compared to

females. The reason for the big difference in gender is because females are better at

identifying emotions than males. They are naturally able to pick up on changes in voice

tones and facial expression better than males. Since Facebook only allows people to

post comments or pictures, females are not able to use their special ability to figure out

anything about the person. This is what is driving them to become addicted. Sharon H.

Thompson, Professor of Health Promotion at Coastal Carolina University, and Eric

Lougheed, BS in Health Promotion a Coastal Carolina, did a study showing the

statistical data on the effect of Facebook on both genders. From the 268 students they

tested, forty-eight percent of females strongly agreed that they were addicted to

Facebook, to a small twenty-two percent of the males (Thompson, Lougheed, 96). Fifty-

six percent of the females said that they felt out of touch when they were not logged into

Facebook. (Thompson, Lougheed, 96). The reason for the low male percentage,

according to Thompson and Lougheed, was either they were using a different social

media site or they were not affected as much by Facebook, but that was still not the

scariest result they found. They found that when college students, who are addicted,

were restricted from using Facebook, the end result was either “suicide or attempted

suicide” (Srivastava, Bhardwaj, 84-85). This situation does not look like it is going to get

better, so something needs to be done to help the addiction problem.

As well as the addiction, Facebook reduces real-life social bonding, participation,

and communication. Facebook was created to keep family and friends closer together,

but that is not the case. It’s really pulling them apart, not bringing them together. The

two reasons why it is doing this is from “displacement of social activities, and
replacement of strong social ties” (Chan, 277). First, since Facebook is accessible at

any time through the day, its users feel like they should replace “real-world interactions”

with time on Facebook (Chan, 277). The amount of time these users spend on it

reduces the time they could have spent hanging out with their friends or family, which is

causing the displacement. Second, Facebook was designed with “social bonding aids”,

which allows its users to post about their feelings online so their close friend group can

see and comment on it (Chan, 277). Since they posted online, other people are able to

see what that user said, which is reducing the need “to engage in real-life

communication” (Chan, 277). Along with those two reasons, Facebook is also

simplifying the way we talk to each other. When SNSs came into the picture, our quality

of communication started to decrease. They erode the “essential aspects of

communication and socialization” (Social Networking/Web 2.0, 5). This is because

every time we post, we slowly lose the skills— “complexity, acuity, patience, wisdom,

intimacy”—which are skills need to communicate efficiently and effectively (Social

Networking/Web 2.0, 5). According to MIT psychology, Sherry Turkle, “As we ramp up

the volume and velocity of online connections, we start to expect faster answers, to get

these, we ask one another simpler questions; we dumb down our communications,

even on the most important matter” (Social Networking/Web 2.0, 5). When we go on

Facebook, we are able to find an answer right away by just by searching for it. We then

get use to how quickly we obtain the information. In a face-to-face conversation, we do

not get that luxury. We have to wait for an answer to the question, which makes us ask

simpler questions to get to it quicker. So by dumbing our conversations down with

people, we are start to lose interactions with other people causing the reduction in real-

life communication.

Lastly, Facebook has an invasion of privacy. Since Facebook is a social

networking site, everything that someone posts is not private. It may have privacy

settings that are supposed to prevent this but no matter what settings the user applies;

that post will always find its way out into the deep web. Depending on the post that gets

through, determines how people will look at that “person’s self-image” (Daly, 481).

Everyone is always going to have that one friend who posts a funny, inappropriate

picture of both of each other in it. It seems like a very harmless act, but that picture can

have a huge effect when it comes down to finding a job. A study done in 2006 by the

University of Dayton said, “Forty percent of the employers consider Facebook profiles

when screening potential employees” (Daly, 481). It also plays a huge factor when

someone’s secret gets posted. Once online, that post is very hard to get rid of because

someone can see it and share it with other people and before long everyone that person

knows can know about that secret. So once anyone joins Facebook, there is no control

on what can be said about that person’s image. All the information or posts about

someone are fair game to anyone else.

With the negative effects Facebook is having on our society, becoming an

addiction problem, reducing social bonding and participation, and invading people’s

privacy, our society will never be the same again. SNSs will become the “new form of

communication” that takes over our lives (Social Networking/Web 2.0, 6). The precious

time that is spent when family members are together will be lost due to a computer

screen causing families to become more distant from each other. “Leslie Perlow,
Harvard Business School professor, said, ‘As technology marches on, there is no going

back. What’s needed is a concerted effort to manage the technology in such a way that

it doesn’t take over our lives, otherwise forever gone will be any such thing as private

time.’” (Social Networking/Web 2.0, 6). Our society has made some very big leaps when

it came down to technology, but those achievements will turn around to hurt us in the

end. Without proper education on how to use the Internet properly and safely, our

society will begin to fall. As “Dean Obeidallah, comedian and commentator, asks CNN,

‘Will our generation leave a lasting legacy or just millions of snarky posts’” (Social

Networking/Web 2.0, 6)?

 Bibliography:

Chan, Terri H. "Facebook and Its Effects on Users' Empathic Social Skills and Life Satisfaction:A Double-
Edged Sword Effect." Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 17.5 (2014): 276-80.
EBSCO. Web. 14 Apr. 2016.

Daly, Ian. “Virtual Popularity Isn’t Cool – It’s Pathetic.” Signs of Life in the USA. Ed. Sonia Maasik, Jack
Solomon. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2012. 480-482. Print.

Ellison, Nicole B., Charles Steinfield, and Cliff Lampe. "The Benefits of Facebook “Friends:” Social Capital
and College Students’ Use of Online Social Network Sites." Journal of Computer-Mediated
Communication 12.4 (2007): 1143-168. EBSCO Web. 14 Apr. 2016.

Kim, Junghyun, and Jong-Eun Roselyn Lee. "The Facebook Paths to Happiness: Effects of the Number of
Facebook Friends and Self-Presentation on Subjective Well-Being." Cyberpsychology, Behavior,
and Social Networking 14.6 (2011): 359-64. EBSCO. Web. 14 Apr. 2016.

Liu, Chia-Yi, PhD, and Chia-Ping Yu, PhD. "Can Facebook Use Induce Well-Being?" Cyberpsychology,
Behavior, and Social Networking 16.9 (2013): 674-78. EBSCO. Web. 14 Apr. 2016.

"Social Networking/Web 2.0." Issues & Controversies (2012). Issues & Controversies. Web. 14 Apr. 2016.

Srivastava, Chhitij, and Anupam Bhardwaj. "Adverse Effects of Online Social Networking on Children and
Adolescents." J.Indian Assoc. Child Adolesc. Ment. Health 10.2 (2014): 80-92. EBSCO. Web. 14
Apr. 2016.

“Students Addicted to Social Media – New UM Study,” Signs of Life in the USA. Ed. Sonia Maasik, Jack
Solomon. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2012. 483-486. Print.

Thompson, Sharon H., EDD, and Eric Lougheed. "Frazzled by Facebook? An Exploratory Study of Gender
Differences in Social Network Communication Among Undergraduate Men and Women."
College Student Journal (March 2012): 88-98. EBSCO. Web. 14 Apr. 2016.