Social Media - Tool or Trouble?

“You gotta love Facebook sex,” I muttered as my daughter harassed me about messaging my husband while we were both in the same room. I have become increasingly aware of the adverse affects of social media on myself and society. Giving up my iPhone has become a number one priority due to the fact that it is monopolizing my time and life. The use of social media is dramatically on the rise. Facebook alone has an estimated 550 million visitors per month (Das & Sahoo, 2011). Social networking sites are a convenient way to keep in touch with each other, and they have transformed our lives socially. However, communication skills are deteriorating, attention spans narrowing, and sadly, the insatiable desire to become a part of technological advances in social media mania is undermining common sense and behavior in society. Although the use of social media has rapidly become a valuable tool in society, few users take any thought of what adverse affects the excessive time spent on these sites has on social development.
My name is DeeArla Bollschweiler and I am a Facebook addict. I have come to the realization that I am obsessed with social media after spending more than five hours playing games, exchanging posts from friends and family, and feverishly trying to figure out what to say on my status update. My need to “log on” grew to be an essential element to my survival. My smartphone with all of its apps and gadgets has become the control center to my world. I am a living example of letting my smartphone control me, and I don’t think that I am the exception.
According to Mirriam-Webster (2012), social media is defined as any form of electronic communication through which users share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content. From pictographs to social networking man has always found a way to communicate. When the telephone was invented, it was used only to communicate in an emergency. As technology advanced, it became a common appliance in