Is Social Networking Really a Benefit?

According to the science daily, it is stated:” Online social networking can help introverted adolescents learn how to socialize.” On the negative it states, “Young adults who have a strong Facebook presence show more signs of other psychological disorders, including antisocial behaviors, mania and aggressive tendencies.” Social networks have been a controversial topic for several years. Some argue social networking is beneficial to society because it helps keep in contact with people worldwide, professionally connects, and is convenient to spread news within seconds. Can this truly be one hundred percent believable? On the contrary, those who believe internet social networks are harmful to society say it results to lack of productiveness, a bad influence to younger generation children, harmful physically to the human body, and a huge invasion of privacy. In today’s day and age, when A young adult meets someone for the first time, usually their first instinct is to add them (as a friend in the networking site) on Facebook and get to know them. In my personal experience, I have encountered myself in the situation several times. The way I get to know a person and better my relationship with him or her is through social networking. If there are emergencies, the social networking sites help spread the news like wildfire. For example, during natural disasters when there are power outages Facebook can be useful in getting information sent amongst people quickly. Businesses also have many connections via networking and therefore it can be a benefit to the companies. For example advertisements for stores such as Nordstrom and Ikea will pop up on the side of the computer screen. These are the various positive results to internet networks. Although these are listed benefits of the internet social networks, they certainly do not outweigh the negative causes. The fact that teenagers accept “friend request” from strangers they meet for the first time is completely ridiculous. Nowadays one adds someone on Facebook or Twitter just to get to know about their personal lives. What happened to getting to know a person through time and experiences shared together? It is actually quite terrifying to know that through a virtual screen, we find the information of where someone lives, works, goes to school, and the every bit of their social lives. Even though businesses get an advantage through the internet, it is also a very big risk to do business on the internet. As mentioned in the New York Times Magazine, “The y(social networks) are a good place to leave messages for friends, propose marriage, and post the scores from the local high school football team. They are not a place where an advertiser can focus on a single group with a message aimed at those people, because no one knows exactly who those people are. For a company trying to sell products or services, Facebook is mayhem in a PC. What the advertiser wants is traditional, orderly content.” One cannot always trust one hundred percent of what is written on the internet, and this for business, is a very big risk they are willing to take. Yes, the spread of emergency news is an advantage through social networking, but remember when we were still able to spread the message before all this networking of the social internet existed? One’s physical health is greatly affected by usage of internet social networking. According to the New York Times article, Susan Greenfield, a professor of pharmacology at Oxford University and the director of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, stated “My fear is that these technologies are infantilizing the brain into the state of small children who are attracted by buzzing noises and bright lights, who have a small attention span and who live for the moment.” This generation has become more lazy, impatient, and less intelligence because of networking. To be hooked on a computer screen for several hours certainly cannot benefit ones brain. The screen makes a person’s eyes weaker. Because the eyes are constantly staring at a computer screen, nearsightedness is caused. This is when it is difficult for one to see distant objects clearly. Although social networking can result as a physically harmful to society, it is not the only reason these social networks harm our generation. From preteens to young adults, it can be a malevolent influence. “A research organization said Wednesday that teens who regularly log on to Facebook and other social networks are considerably more likely to smoke, drink or use marijuana than teens who don't visit the sites” (Chicago Tribune News). It is a logic explanation to state that teenagers get easily persuaded while looking at other photos of kids their own age drinking, partying, and smoking. There are rarely any restrictions to certain pictures via the internet social networks. These under aged kids have the freedom to view anything and everything and parents and guardians cannot be there all the time to watch what is being viewed. It is unfortunate that this information can very inappropriate. It is stated, “ (found through a survey) compared to young people who avoid the sites, teens who regularly visit them are twice as likely to use marijuana, three times more likely to drink alcohol and five times more likely to use tobacco” (Chicago Tribune News). Overall, this is another proven fact, how kids can be discouraged through social networks. A lack of productiveness plays a huge role in the society I live in today. Because networks such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter are available from the palm of our hands, it makes it much more difficult to focus on education. Those who use the computer for research papers tend to procrastinate by viewing other people’s status on the internet. This results in not getting enough work done as intended to. In my personal experience, I had a friend who deleted her Facebook account in 8th grade because she realized how much of a distraction it was to school. Now, her being a freshman in college, she states “I have been so much more productive ever since I cut Facebook out of my life. I focus and tend to do much better in school than I used to.” Through these points, it is therefore shown to be unproductive due to internet social networks. Although many find it useful to be able to connect to people through the internet, through these proven facts and personal experiences, the networking through social internet overall causes negative affects to our society. It is not one hundred percent proven to be beneficial, and even though it’s not completely harmful either, the odds of negative results are more likely than the positive effects as stated through these examples.