My Experience and Thoughts about Social Media(Revise Draftt)

I fixed grammar and punctuation. Especially, I had many mistakes with adverbs, so I tried to fix them all. Also, I added more articles and resources to supplement evidence. I supplemented content and changed some words in order to understand essay clearly. 

Inhyup Kim

Instructor: Professor Crane

English 1010

19 May 2012

My Experience and Thoughts about Social Media

Over 500 million people use Facebook which is the largest online social network. Many people who are using Facebook, Twitter, or other social media. I started to use social media after a voluntary two-year LDS mission 2009 to 2011. Before my mission, I was not interested in social media. Frankly, I did not even know what Facebook was, because other social media which is called Cyworld was more popular than Facebook in Korea. Social media has many advantages for people. For example, I can contact my friends who are living far away very easily. Also, Facebook can make relationships with others easier. Russ Ouellette said, “Facebook allows us to keep in touch with colleagues, family members, and even distant relationships that would have normally had communications gaps of years”(19). Also, people can check social media at any time because technology has developed remarkably. Especially, you can easily access social media through mobile phone.

However, in spite of these advantages, social media has some side effects. I have used Facebook for only one year, but I can see about the negative affects it can have: wasting time to use social media, hurting relationships, and increasing hypocrisy.

             First of all, social networks compel us spend a lot of time using them. As I mentioned previously, technology has progressed rapidly. We can access social networks wherever and whenever we want, because we can access social media through the mobile phone. It is really convenient, but it can make us waste all our time if we are not careful. Many people spend a lot of time managing their social network page, or looking around on others pages. The last semester, I took a sociology class. In this class, I had a chance to conduct surveys for a project. My survey topic was the relationship between using social media and studying in college. Many students were using social media more than an hour a day. Surprisingly, one of the students was using Facebook more than four hours a day. Also, Adriana M. Manago said “Overall, participants reported spending on average a little over an hour a day on Facebook. They reported checking into their accounts quite frequently; 80% report logging on to Facebook multiple times a day, and on average, they reported updating their status a few times a week”(374).

However, many people said social media is not helpful for studying. I was so surprised, and I could see that social media is very addictive. I thought about what if we did not have social media. We could certainly focus on our studying more and spend our time more efficiently to progress our talents, such as playing instruments, exercising, or reading books, but we would have to cut down our social media time.

             Second, social networks distort our relationships. Humans are social animals. We cannot meet with everyone each day. We just do not have time. In this sense, social networks are really helpful to keep in touch with our friends. However, this is not real interaction. Many have hundreds of friends on Facebook, but they do not contact everyone, just a few people who they really like: Jake Martin said “So Facebook has, for all intents and purposes, become a way … to acquire as many “friends” as possible with whom I will never have to communicate again”( 23). Also, Maria Kalpidou mentioned, “More than 300 friends was related to low social attractiveness…of the profile owner”(188). Online relationships are shallow and short. When people use just social networks without any physical meeting, they can easily feel loneliness. I read one study that said that people who use Facebook are generally less happy than people who do not use it. Relationships nowadays have changed a lot, but intimate friends are come from real life, not online.

             In addition to taking us from our studies and friends, social media encourages hypocrisy. Online we can see everyone everyday. Without social media, it would be difficult to see those who live far away. We usually contact them or hear their news through social media. We see their pictures or read their messages on their “wall,” a sort of cyber bulletin board. As I mentioned before, we cannot physically see them, so people can act two-faced very easily. Jake Martin explained why people do this acts, “I want to win and will do whatever it takes to have more “friends” than anyone else, just so long as I don’t ever have to be in contact with them”(23). One day, I called a friend in Korea, and we talked about Facebook. He totally dislikes using Facebook, because he sees a lot of people posting hypocritical messages. He said many people are lying online. He avoids using social networks, but it does not mean he is anti-social. He is meeting friends and keeps in contact by using a cell phone. He just does not use social media. I have also felt that way at times. I think personal ostentation and vanity make this phenomena. For this reason, I like to meet someone physically because when I meet them, I can see their pure and undissembled features and characters.

             By using social media I have experienced that social media can play a strong influence in our lives. Using social media is unavoidable because everyone uses it and connects to each other through social media. I think we need to use social media with wisdom. When we do, we can live healthier and more efficiently.

Works cited

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. Academic Search Premier. Web. 8 June 2012.

Manago, Adriana M., Tamara Taylor, and Patricia M. Greenfield. "Me And My 400 Friends: The Anatomy Of College Students' Facebook Networks, Their Communication Patterns, And Well-Being." Developmental Psychology 48.2 (2012): 369-380. Academic Search Premier. Web. 8 June 2012.

Martin, Jake. "FACEBOOKED." America 18 May 2009: 22+. Academic Search Premier. Web. 19 May 2012.

Ouellette, Russ. "Improving Your Relationships Through Social Media." New Hampshire Business Review 32.10 (2010): 19. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 18 May 2012.