Facebook is one of the most popularly used websites in the world. According to the Facebook “About” section in 2012 over 1 billion active users were recorded (“About Facebook, Inc.”). It is more than a mere socializing website. It is a tool utilized by most college students and was in fact created by college students to aid college students. Facebook has its major advantages and disadvantages towards college kids.
Facebook is one of the best tools in college. For easy group communication, the Facebook group message feature makes life a lot easier. Instead of using the old style of communication, otherwise known as email, Facebook group message speeds up the process. Email can be tedious and quite slow. Typing an email with correct format takes several minutes. A carbon copy in email can be quite confusing to read because of all the formal clutter. Facebook is more of an informal approach. Say you need to send a file to all your group members. You can just combine your group members into one message and attach the document that needs to be sent. You can also see who already opened the file and if it sent to the person.
Colleges have recently started utilizing Facebook to promote school wide events. Colleges benefit from this greatly because it allows students to pull them together. It also allows the college to monitor who is going to these events beforehand. This leads to adequate spending and savings from a college promoter. Instead of creating a university event where the number of guests are unknown, a Facebook event page allows a better picture of the event. It shows how many people were invited, how many are going, and how many people declined it. The event page allows a great amount of people to see it. If a friend on Facebook clicks the going button, all their friends will see it. This is a free form of advertising and reaches out to a vast number of people.
We might all think, hey what’s so bad about Facebook anyways? It connects people together, promotes big events, and makes new friends. However, Facebook has its major downsides to it too.
College Students have to make time for everything. According to a survey the average time spent on Facebook by college students is 60 to 120 minutes a day (Donlan). All this time could be done studying. In fact according to the same survey “spending a lot of time on Facebook is associated with low self-esteem. (Wohn & LaRose, 2014)” This data seemed to be heavily connected to first years more. Since most first years are still adjusting to the huge change, they conform to Facebook. They feel as if they must find themselves once again. It also makes them anti-social by not participating in social activities. However, it acts like a stress reliever. It connects them to their old friends to stay in contact. It also allows them to create new friends that share similar interests. This then steers them on the right path of being social.
Study habits should be formed at an early age. “Children aged 8 to 18 who spend less time using media do better in school than those who use more media (Kaiser Family Foundation).” Facebook and its features can be very distracting at times. The more time a student spends on Facebook, the less time they are studying. Every college student wants to do their best in college, and with a huge distraction it can affect the student’s future.
So the final question is, is Facebook a tool of helping one another communicate to achieve greatness and spread joy to all around us? Or is Facebook a tool to destroy college lives with the numerous features and subtle effects it has on an emotional well-being? That answer can only be described by the Facebook user. A tool can help create a world, but it also has the capability to destroy it as well.
“About Facebook, Inc.” Facebook. Facebook, Inc., 2014. Web. 27 Nov. 2014.
Donlan, Leah. “Exploring The Views Of Students On The Use Of Facebook In University Teaching And Learning.” Journal Of Further & Higher Education 38.4 (2014): 572-588. Web. 1 Dec. 2014.
Facebook WASTING PEOPLES LIVES SINCE 2004. N.d. BlueFinch. Web. 1 Dec.2014.
Kaiser Family Foundation. (2010). Report: Generation M2: Media in the lives of 8- to 18-YearOlds—Kaiser Family Foundation. Web. 27 Nov. 2014.
Kalpidou, Maria, Dan Costin, and Jessica Morris. “The Relationship Between Facebook And The Well-Being Of Undergraduate College Students.” Cyberpsychology, Behavior & Social Networking 14.4 (2011): 183-189. Web. 27 Nov. 2014.
Trimpe, Alex “The World Is Obsessed With Facebook” YouTube. YouTube. 21 Feb. 2011.Web. 1 Dec. 2014.
Wohn, Donghee Yvette, and Robert LaRose. “Effects Of Loneliness And Differential Usage Of Facebook On College Adjustment Of First-Year Students.” Computers & Education 76.(2014): 158-167. Web. 29 Nov. 2014.
Xiang, Jai Blia (JAIBLIA). “Goodbye for now #facebook you are too much of a #distraction” 7 Oct. 2013. 3:50 p.m. Tweet.