Social Networking Effects on Society Essay Example for Free

Social Networking Effects on Society Essay Are Social networking sites negatively affecting our society as a whole? Currently, some media sources are claiming social networking sites like Facebook having a negative effect on society. Social networking sites should be used to the minimum as possible, if it was not used as much the society could have a lot more free time, less bullying, and even less social. Even though many businesses can say it is good for the society in a way where people can get more information or even do business meetings on Skype, another networking site. This paper is going to give information about all things that can affect people in negative ways. Even though there are a few ways it can help, it can still be dangerous without the right precautions. In this example of a social networking site becoming dangerous for society, Jain R. Rishbabh, a writer for the Daily Iowan newspaper, Rishbabh finds one student at the University of Iowa who deleted his Facebook account. â€Å"It just seemed a little ironic to me that a social-networking site was essentially making our society less social.† The student said he was annoyed at the fact he was wasting his time by going on these sites just to look at other people’s lives. Rishbabh found some information saying that people are spending less time on Facebook than usual. â€Å"They are partying like it is 2006,† said David Perlmutter, the director of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Iowa. He meant by this that people are less active on social networking sites like in 2006 when it wasn’t as popular. Mainly he is stating that he believes that many people aren’t using social networking sites as much because they are beginning to realize that it is â€Å"wasting their time,† much like the student who deleted his Facebook account, and many people are just getting annoyed of its success. Rishbabh used ethos in a pretty effective way by quoting actual students and socially respectable people. He also used pathos, first by quoting a student who said he it was effecting his study time, and again by scaring you to delete the facebook if you want to do better in school and social life. The logical appeal in which Jain Rishbabh used was that he brought up statistics from the magazine The Inquisitor stating that in recent year facebook growth users has dropped from 89 percent all the way down to a mere five percent. There is another article that has been gave insight on how time is wasted on social networking site. â€Å"Frazzled by Facebook?† an article that was written by Sharon Thompson and Eric Loghead, who are authors for the College Student Journal. In it they talk about how â€Å"almost 75% of teens and young adults are member of at least one social networking site†(Thompson). The main argument is that using the internet communication for longer than a person is suppose to be, may relate to social adjustment problems. They believe this is why because online communication is generally considered to be of poorer quality than Face-to-Face communication and that youth with social skill problems are often deawn to internet relationships. Thompson and Loghead created a survey, which included several questions regarding internet and social networking usage, such as; â€Å"in the past week, how many minutes per day have you spent on the internet?† (Thompson 4) and â€Å"in the past week, how many times have you visited a social networking site?†(Thompson 4). Results revealed that average people who were on thses sites were mainly college students around 19 years of age. Their social behavior was changed because of the large amounts of time the students where on the networking sites. Then the survey testers were split into two different groups, first group was the testers who are users who donts spend a lot of time on a social networking site and the second group consisted of users who are on a site for mare than one hour per day. From these studies, it shows that â€Å"Teens and young adults are spending more time that the Facebook Intensity Scale had expected† (FBI). Now it seems like bullying is happening more than ever. Cyber bullying may play a big part in that, probably because of the large blow up in the social networking sites, and that most people on the sites are the ages between 16 and 21( ). Cyber bullying affects everyone from young children to even college students. Cyber bullying is defined as â€Å"repeated harm inflicted through the use of computers, cell phones and other electronic devices,† according to the Cyber bullying Research Center. Samantha Miller, an author who wrote an article about cyber bullying and its effect which featured in the American Observer, finds that the cyber bullying is more common than most expect it to be. She also finds out there are many types of this cyber bullying. She calls one an â€Å"invisible tormentor† which she gives an example where, a random girl, that was bullied and didn’t even know about it, and she also did not even know who the person doing the bullying even was. â€Å"Beyond the school house gates† she talks about the laws against cyber bullying in 35 states â€Å"the majority mainly prohibits the act on school grounds,† according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Most of her article represents on how the children to young adults can get harmed mentally through some of these social networking sites, in this way it could be dangerous in a different way than most because bullying doesn’t just hurt people physically but mentally and it could eventually lead to suicide (ABC NEWS). Another good argument about negative effects of social networking is an article written by Brian Feinstein. Called â€Å"Another Venue for Problematic Interpersonal Behavior: The Effects of Depressive and Anxious Symptoms on Social Networking Experiences.† Three hundred and one participants completed an initial survey and a follow-up survey. Results showed that depressive, global anxiety and social anxiety symptoms were not much related with changes in time spent on social networking sites. In contrast, the people being depressed were generally related with increases in negative interactions and negative influence following interactions. Further, global and social anxiety symptoms were generally not significantly associated with changes in the quality of social networking interactions. These findings say that social networking activities are another way in which â€Å"psychological problems manifest in dysfunctional interpersonal interactions.† (Feinstein) Further, different types of psychological problems appear to differentially influence social networking experiences.