Aaron Kwok

Brian Peters
Carolyn Doan
Genaro Tafur
Nico DeGuzman
Tairui Gong
April 30, 2014
English 1010-017
The Negative Effects of Using Facebook
What exactly is social media? Ask any passerby in the 21st century and the first thought
in their head will be, Facebook. Society has became accustomed to social networks so
thoroughly that it's a part of our everyday lives, being comparable next to sleeping, eating, and
even breathing. While one is spending the day away
updating their status or simply scrolling down their
newsfeed to see what others have posted, there's a good
chance they should have been doing something else
something more productive. In our own personal
research (refer to Figure 1), a survey was taken around
the local campus amongst young adults from the ages of
18-25, and a high percentage of 48% out of 100
students, check Facebook 5+ times per day. In that
23%
29%
48%
1-2 times 3-4 times 5+ times
Figure 1 - How many times do you check
Facebook a day?
amount of times for one to continuously do the same action over and over, how much of that
time collected could have been used to hit the gym, do some homework, or grab a bite to eat with
some friends? Because of this online world, the outside world has been terribly forgotten.
Besides the ruling king of social network, there are also others that play a part into this, such as
Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Foursquare. With the assistance of these powers at hand, our
generation is unknowingly losing their natural skill of socializing amongst others in person. Back
in 2010, there were 128,900,000 citizens in the U.S, that had already set up a Facebook profile;
44.6 of which are 24-years of age and younger, with another 31.7 million between the ages of
25-34. (Wells). One can only imagine how high those numbers have increased by 2014.
Generation X and Generation Y are the most technology based in the decade. Everything is done
electronically, ranging across the spectrum from making purchases, searching up news, reading a
book, and yes, even checking Facebook can be done on cellphones with the 24/7 app. This just
goes to show how easily accessible Facebook is, and how much people will put time into it,
increasing the time of social networking, while decreasing the necessities of human interaction.
This technological detachment is becoming today's reality.
What exactly does human interaction consist of? Human interaction is when two different
beings communicate with each other, right? With the aid of Facebook, that definition is no
longer valid. Facebook has ruined the beautiful process of taking valuable time out of one's day
to step out of the house for a cup of coffee with a buddy, being able to make jokes in person,
hear their unattractive laugh, smell the coffee beans being brewed, and stare into their dark
brown eyes, all the while noticing the small freckles that weren't visible on their profile picture.
These days, young adults don't make time for that type of personal human interaction; most
would rather send back to back messages using Facebook messenger, but it's not the same type
69%
18%
13%
25% 50% 75% and up
of interaction. You will never receive the satisfaction of reading their messages over and over,
compared to a long conversation in person. A smiley face emoji will never have the power to
replace a less than straight, cheesy smile. The disembodied notification of a message is not a
human connection.
As far as having friends, on Facebook,
the quality in the relationship becomes less and
less, as it only becomes a quantity after. For
example, our survey received a result of a large
69% of the 100, that only speak to less than 25% of
their Facebook friends. (Figure 2) What is the
point of having such a large number, when these
names do not hold meaning?
While one is busy checking their newsfeed for a different update on irrelevant and most
likely ignorant status from these so-called, friends, Facebook users are using precious time on
a social media site, while having many other opportunities waiting to be taken. FaceItPages
gathered information from KISSmetrics on their article, and came up with the rates of when
Facebook's website is most high in traffic. The busiest day is Saturday, along with a spike of
status updates around 7pm. That Saturday you spent checking your Facebook 5 times a day, and
with an estimated use of 17 minutes for each session (Info Tech Updater), that's roughly 85
minutes; an hour and a half that could have been spent doing a productive activity. Facebook
consumes more time than the average college user realizes. Rather than spending time in
developing relationships, we as human beings rely on technology to do simple mundane tasks for
Figure 2 - What percent of your Facebook friends do
you actually see/ meet in person?
53%
47%
Yes No
us to keep in, contact, with each other, rather than doing the job ourselves. This negative
aspect of Facebook is being abused and is an issue in the community.
To test out our theory, half of our group members decided to go out for an outing to the
local bar on the weekend and observe other social parties interacting around their friends. The
bar is normally packed with constant individuals going in and out, conversing about the daily
activities of sitting at the cubicle and bragging about how they're going to hit on the cutie
standing by the pool table. Although the night our group visited was full of people ready to
mingle, there were a good amount of those outsiders with their nose pressed onto a bright phone
screen, dazed into possibly a text message or even checking their Facebook profile for private
messages. We observed that it wasnt only a single person in each darkened corner doing this,
but a majority of the group with their eyes locked onto their mobile devices. Has in person
socializing evolved into this?
As we observed a few party of pals checking their Facebook in the middle of the bar, we
overhead nearby buddies that would convey a more than irritated conveyed message to their
zombie-like friend, you've been on the phone all
day! Were out for gods sake! Or the more subtle
approach, instead of staring at your phone, have a
sip of your drink. It was interesting to see friends
assisting each other and noticing that these small
actions taken without intention from the user, that it
was a disturbance and even an annoyance to some.
On a shocking note, our results differed from the
outcome of the test. (refer to Figure 3) On our survey,
Figure 3 - Do you check Facebook when you are
around other people? (Dinner, bar, party, etc..)
the answer came out to be half-half as to whether or not Facebook was checked at least once
when surrounded by others. However, that does not change the fact that what was seen from the
naked eye holds a higher credibility than what one thinks they do. Most do not realize that they
even see their Facebook profile every single day, as it has become an unfortunate habit.
Facebook is a major distraction. Not only at a social event is it a disruption, but in less
recreational situations, such as studying for a test. Students will be assigned a research paper, and
find themselves in a situation with one tab as Google Scholar, then the tab right by is Facebook.
On one group meeting, each and every one of us ironically chuckled about how our parts of the
draft were delayed throughout our time allotted for English class, due to being sidetracked by no
other than our favorite social media site. With how effortless it is to access Facebook, its
difficult for the average being to not spend a few minutes logging on to check for a funny status
update or a shared Vine of a dancing cat. Those few minutes taken to scroll through Facebook,
could have been used to proactively work on the paper, or even better, finish on time.
Facebook is one of the largest social networks out there, if not the biggest. It's the most
well known, and can even be it's own country with the number of members rising every single
day. Facebook has already topped the United States, and is growing by an average of 77%
yearly! (McMillan) It's practically impossible to completely shut the whole website down,
nonetheless force anyone to quit using their Facebook; however, our attempt to resolve the issue
using Facebook negatively is simply by educating and encouraging.
To educate, we started off in a small area that consisted of our local Redwood campus.
We passed out colorful brochures to students on campus, which creates a domino affect from
word of mouth and attention grabbing papers that were left on tables by others. As long as it was
read, viewers are able to gasp in awe about the high numbers of their use of Facebook and
possibly attempting to stop. Along those lines, are where the encouragement came from. When
young adults do realize how much Facebook has an affect on their everyday lives and social
skills, it motivates them to use Facebook less, which is a foot in the solution. As researched,
there are no clear precise answers to completely rid of this negative aspect of Facebook, but
rather more informative articles on reasons as to why social media should be stopped. Our group
flowed along with that concept, and agreed to a more practical resolution that can be started at
our very own community. Knowledge is power and we plan to keep that in our neighborhood for
as long as we can to promote more in person contact, rather than digitized conversations, and
stimulate young adults to focus on being productive, rather than being hooked on Facebook.

Works Cited
"Facebook Statistics." Statistic Brain RSS. Facebook, 1 Jan. 2014. Web. 15 Apr. 2014.
<http://www.statisticbrain.com/facebook-statistics/>.
What Is The Best Time To Post To Facebook? FaceItPages. FaceItPages.com, 7 Oct 2012.
Web. 28 Apr. 2014. <http://faceitpages.com/blog/best-time-to-post-to-facebook/1061/>.
Facebook's Growth & Revenue. Info Tech Updater. Facebook.com Jul 2014. Web. 28 Apr.
2014.
<https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.646751542002797.1073741848.59594114708383
7&type=3>
McMillan, Graeme. If Facebook Was A Country, It'd Be Larger Than China In Three Years.
DigitalTrends. DigitalTrends.com 6 Feb 2013. Web. 29 Apr. 2014.
<http://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/facebook-could-be-larger-than-china-in-three-years-
time/>
Jacques, Renee. "11 Reasons You Should Quit Facebook In 2014." The Huffington Post.
TheHuffingtonPost.com, 30 Dec. 2013. Web. 16 Apr. 2014.
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/30/reasons-quit-facebook_n_4493791.html>.
"The Pros and Cons of Facebook." The pros and cons of Facebook. Puresight Technologies Ltd.,
1 Jan. 2011. Web. 15 Apr. 2014. <http://www.puresight.com/Useful-tools/the-pros-and-cons-of-
facebook.html>.