Category: Facebook

Introduction

Over the past years, people’s lives have been slowly taken over by technology. It has mechanized agriculture, improved the transportation, communication, education and the learning process of the youth. Today it is possible to bring news, ideas, and entertainment to millions of people through social networking sites such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Facebook was launched on February 4, 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with his fellow college student which are Eduardo Saverin, Andrew Mc Collum, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. Facebook is an American online social media and social networking service which provides a good communication globally. It also uses over 140 languages for them to understand easier.

Facebook is the most common online app which all teenagers nowadays are addicted to surf in. It is also the most usual application that is use to communicate with others from far places anytime and anywhere in fastest way than ever before. By this, people can post photos, thoughts, comments, and ideas that can share to public. This can work a lot of things but is this enough to give individuals their full trust on it especially their private life and information?

Significance of the Study

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of using Facebook. This study aims to help the students to at least minimize their time using Facebook, to manage their behavior or personal values towards other people and to give other students some knowledge to the positive and negative effects of using Facebook.

Teachers and parents can also benefit to this study as it can help them to be able to understand what challenges of their student and children are facing.

Future researchers of this study can use this research as guide and reference material in doing their own problem or study.

Statement of the Problem

• How does using Facebook affects the academic performance of a student?
• What are the advantage and disadvantages of Facebook use into a persons’ health?
• How does Facebook use affect the behavior of young students?
• How does Facebook use influence individuals’ relationship?

Hypothesis

By having a clear communication is one thing that can really help people to have a strong bond and can build into a new relationship. Facebook can be a destruction when it comes to studying as it diverges one’s attention, but it is helpful since students tend to communicate and talk about their school works and stuffs through Facebook.

Some students claim that visiting social media sites during class time helps them deal with the boredom they experience. Students may also suffer to some health disorders such as blurriness of sight and dizziness after using Facebook.

Scope and Delimitation

This study focused on the ‘The Influences of Facebook to the Youth”, and was limited and conducted only at 50 Grade 10 students of Don Jose National High School during the year 2018.

It is intended for the student’s audience, specifically Millennials. Furthermore, it only attempted to identify the effects of using Facebook on students.

Review Of Related Literature

This chapter includes the review of related literature which the researchers have pursued to shed light on the topic under study. This chapter also helps in familiarizing information that are significant to the present study.

Foreign Literature

According to Boyd & Ellison (2008) social networking sites are the latest online communication tool that allows users to interact with people in their networks. Youth spend a lot of time in browsing the network, particularly Facebook, as they find it the best form of communication mode. Facebook was created by Mark Zuckerberg to help residential college and university students to identify students in other residence halls. It is defined as “an online directory that connects people through social networks at colleges and universities” (Zuckerberg,2005). It is becoming popular and even official communication is carried out on them as well as personal. Facebook allows individuals to present themselves to other users using a variety of formats; including text, video and chat services.

The generation of 15-18 year-old users has been referred by many as a post-millennial. Their irresistible need to connect with their peers, coupled with the development of 24/7 accessible technologies, can make the use of sites like Facebook all consuming. These young media consumers are more connected than any previous generation, and they have an expectation to remain that way in all aspects of their lives. People from different age ranges interact and exchange content; they share videos and pictures, discuss subjects, chat, public advertisements for group events or play available applications.

Students spend many hours surfing this socializing website and over usage of any media does have its impact, both positive and negative. Facebook provides the latest news of the world and most of the newspapers are available online, which are immediately updated with the latest news. It offers significant advantages for its users such as sharing and collecting information, searching for jobs, communication and entertainment; for instance, users can play games with other people in any part of the world, watch movies and listen to music. It also permits individual to develop their self-identity as Facebook is a ground for face to face communication. Improvements of moods as one is able to communicate with far off friends and family or relatives.

Academic performance refers to how students deal with their studies and how they complete their studies given to them, by teachers. Students are paying more attention towards this social networking activity rather than utilizing their time for their studies and this surely affects their academic performance.

The destructive effects of this social networking site overweigh the improving ones. This site has caused some bad effect to society. The students become addicted more often than anyone else because when they are studying or searching materials online, they get attracted to this site to kill the boredom in their study time, sidetracking their attention from their work and they forget why they are using internet. This split attention paid to multiple tasks causes distraction and results in reduction of time for other activities that are related academic, physical and social hobbies that requires face to face meeting. According to Fogg and Lizawa (2008), although the use of social networking sites is subject to persuasive attitude of the social website and the attitudes of the users toward social networking in general, online behaviors also reflect personality traits, values and culture(Hofsted,1984). Nalwa and Anand (2003) found that Facebook addictive users used for long sessions, resulting in personal behavior problems and neglect of important work responsibilities. According to them, young individuals having lower self-esteem have the high level of usage of instant messaging than those who have high level of self-esteem. Surfing Facebook does show abnormal symptoms such as depression, anxiety, and excessive aggression. Furthermore, one can suffer from isolation as one will tend to be glued to a smart phone and move out of the house and meet people. One may put on weight as one will sit in front of the computer or lay on bed facing their phones for a long time and eat. The reason is because of lack of exercise and they will suffer from obesity. Too much exposure to the screen is bad for the eyes. Teenagers must go out and spend time doing some outdoor activities rather than facing a smartphone.

Facebook also promotes laziness and can have a lack of emotional connection.

It is but natural that Facebook can have a positive effect as well as negative effect. Definitely everyone must be careful of the negative impact of Facebook.

Research Methodology

This chapter shows the method and procedure to be used in study. It also describes the subjects of the study, the procedure of data gathering, and the instruments used. These procedures help the researchers in formulating the outcome of the study.

The location of the researchers that conducted a survey was within the school premises which is the Don Jose National High School.

The statistical tool used in this study is the descriptive statistics. The researchers aim to summarize a sample, rather than use the data to learn about the population that the sample of data is thought to present. Thus, the researcher used the application of percentage in the computation of data to determine the accurate ranking of each factor.

This study will be dedicated to the description of the methods and procedures done in order to obtain the data, how they will be analyzed, interpreted and how the conclusion will be met, as this research seeks to discover the impacts of Facebook use among students.

I. Research Method

In order to gather the necessary data, the researcher used a descriptive method as a research design.

This type of method is suitable for the study since the data were collected through a survey. Quantitative approach shall be observed as it will obtain numerical data from the respondents through survey questionnaire.

The quantitative method is ideal since it focuses more on the ability to complete statistical analysis.

Also, the researcher does not manipulate the research setting, but rather seeks to understand the present existing condition.

II. Research Instrument

For this study, researcher designs a self-administered paper, a pen and paper type of questionnaire for the data gathering to get quantitative data. The main point of the questionnaires is to determine and evaluate the influences of Facebook use.

After the survey, the researchers organized and processed the data through tally.

The researcher used a closed-ended questions. A closed question is the simplest to ask to which the respondents must answer yes or no. As it makes it quick and easy for other respondents to answer they were also benefiting and a good example is for testing their understandings. Through this, the researcher will be able to limit responses that are within the scope of this study.

The questionnaire was structured in such a way that respondents will be able to answer it easily. Thus, one of the researcher used as a questionnaire that requires the subject to indicate his or her degree of agreement or disagreement to a statement.

III. Respondents of the Study

The researcher randomly selected and surveyed exactly 50 Grade 10 students of Don Jose National High School.

The respondents are as follows:

50%

50%

IV. Validity

In order to test the validity of the survey questionnaire, the researcher tested and interviewed the questionnaire to 5 students. The answers of the respondents who have been tested were not part of the actual study. After answering the given questions, researchers asked the respondents for suggestions and correction to make the instrument improve further.

The researcher removed and replaced the unrelated questions and change difficult to understand terminologies to make it simpler and make the survey more comprehensive for the selected students.

Findings

This section organizes the results of the study. It discusses the data gathered before, during and after the implementation of the research. The researcher transfers what they have learned into words and examples. This chapter gives graphs and tables and its verbal interpretation of the data related to the study which is the influences of Facebook to the youth of the selected Grade 10 students on Don Jose National High School SY 2017-2018.

This contains survey questions related to lack of time management, bad effects to their health, technologies, and also the inability to cope up to their academic performance, and relationship.

Table 1: Age of the students

Responses for the survey of the Grade 10 students on the influences of Facebook to the youth on Don Jose National High School. S.Y. 2017-2018.

Table 1 shows that the students who got the age of 16 with the percentage of 70% are greater than the students with the age of 15 with 16%, 17 with 8%, 18 with 4%, and 19 with only 2%. Based on the results, it states that most of the respondents with the age of 15-16 are suitable for their grade level.

Table 2 Table Question Number 1: Facebook as Entertainment.

Responses for the survey of the Grade 10 students on the influences of Facebook to the youth on Don Jose National High School. S.Y. 2017-2018.

Answers

Frequency

Percentage (%)

Yes

43

86

No

7

14

50

100

Table 2.1 shows that 86% of the students consider Facebook as an entertainment while 14% of students does not found Facebook so entertaining.

Table 2. Question Number 2: Facebook as Medium for Communication

Responses for the survey of the Grade 10 students on the influences of Facebook to the youth on Don Jose National High School. S.Y. 2017-2018.

Answers

Frequency

Percentage (%)

Yes

44

88

No

6

12

50

100

12

Table 2.2 shows that 88% of students consider Facebook as their medium for communication while only 12% of students do not use this app for communication purposes.

Table 2. Question Number 3: Prioritizing Facebook Than Household Chores

Responses for the survey of the Grade 10 students on the influences of Facebook to the youth on Don Jose National High School. S.Y. 2017-2018.

Answers

Frequency

Percentage (%)

Yes

23

46

No

27

54

50

100

The table 2.2 shows that 54% of students still manage to do the household chores rather than using Facebook but 46% of students are still prioritizing Facebook than the household chores.

Table 2. Question Number 4: Negative Effect of Facebook to Mental Health

Responses for the survey of the Grade 10 students on the influences of Facebook to the youth on Don Jose National High School. S.Y. 2017-2018.

Answers

Frequency

Percentage (%)

Yes

21

42

No

29

58

50

100

13

This table shows that 42% of the students were negatively affected by Facebook to their mental health while 58% of them does not suffer mental dysfunction cause by Facebook use.

Table 3: Student’s Allotted Time With Facebook Use’ disfunction cause by facebook use.

Table 3 shows that most of the students are limiting their use of Facebook. Some answered that they mostly spend 30 minutes-1 hour of using Facebook with the total of 58%. The lowest number of respondents with 20% are spending their 2-3 hours on using Facebook while 22% of the students are allotting their 6-24 hours on Facebook use.

Table 4

Responses for the survey of the Grade 10 students on the influences of Facebook to the youth on Don Jose National High School. S.Y. 2017-2018.

14

Question #

Always

Sometimes

Never

1

23%

26%

2%

2

30%

60%

10%

3

26%

58%

16%

Question number 1: Facebook as A Source of Information shows that 2% of the students answered that they never gather any news or information from Facebook while 26% of them answered that Facebook sometimes provides them social informations. Some are aware of the fake news which is the current issue today so sometimes the information on Facebook was not that reliable to make it as a source. And lastly, 23% of the students are always discovering some informations about the society, this only implies that Facebook is effective for them to know more about the society.

Question number 2: Expressing Emotions Through Facebook shows that 30% of the students answered that they always get so overwhelmed every time someone liked or commented on their post, this simply means that Facebook is giving them affection because it became a part of their lives. 60% of the students responds that they just sometimes feel the affection brought to them by the said social media application while only 10% of them are never been satisfied or overwhelmed by the attention and appreciation of their Facebook friends with their post on Facebook.

Question number 3: Negative Effects of Facebook to Our Health shows that 26% of the students always suffer some health disorders such as the blurriness of sight and dizziness after using Facebook while those who often suffer this is 58% and those who does not are 16% of the students. This implies that Facebook still causes damage to our health, limitation is real applicable.

Table 5. Question Number 1: Facebook as A Hindrance in Personal Communication

Responses for the survey of the Grade 10 students on the influences of Facebook to the youth on Don Jose National High School. S.Y. 2017-2018.

Table 5.1 shows the answer of these 66% of students who consider Facebook as a hindrance for their personal relationship with other people. Some explained that it was because the more they become closed through Facebook, they are being complacent about the relationship they have, so it’s okay for them if they are not communicating personally because they are being used to it.

Also according to the research, because people tend to focus more on Facebook, they are being unaware of what’s happening to their surroundings, they forget about how to socialize personally.

But 34% of the students answered that they are not seeing Facebook as a hindrance, instead it actually helps them grow more on socializing personally. Facebook is urging them to make time for people personally.

Table 5. Question Number 2: Benefits of Facebook Use to Academic Needs of the Students

Responses for the survey of the Grade 10 students on the influences of Facebook to the youth on Don Jose National High School. S.Y. 2017-2018.

Table 5.2 shows that 28% of the students answered that they do not found Facebook so helpful when it comes to their academic needs.

According to the research, some students just use Facebook for entertainment purposes only. Some also says that even though they can communicate with their classmates and teachers regarding their homework, still most of the informations now in Facebook are false.

On the other hand, 72% of the students answered that they consider Facebook as a helpful medium to excel with their academics because some of them are searching the pages from Facebook regarding the different kinds of trivia and information that improves their knowledge and is helpful for answering the logics in some class discussions. Also they can ask some of their classmates about the things they get confused into through chat even when they are apart.

Conclusions

Young teenagers spend a lot of their time in browsing the network particularly the Facebook as they find it as the best form of communication mode. The most popular mode of networking is undoubtedly, the Facebook apart from other social media networking sites. Using Facebook sometimes has a big help but also a big distraction.

Facebook provides a development platform for many social gaming, communication, feedback, review and other applications related to online activities. It has affected the social life and activity of people in various ways. Facebook has also a large impact on students. Some students are using it for educational purposes. Students would like to do some online collaboration with classmates. Since most of the students consider Facebook as their medium for communication base on the findings. Facebook also allows people using computers or mobile phones to continuously stay in touch with friends, relatives and other acquaintances wherever they are in the world, as long as there is an access to the internet. It has reunited lost family members and friends. It allows users to trade ideas, stay informed with local or global developments, and unite people with common interests or beliefs through open and closed groups and other pages. Facebook has let people to join large group of peers and acquaintances to socialize with them by means of video call and chatting.

The social networking site has become an addiction for many that can lead to the lack of productive activities, instead of students concentrating to their homework or studying for a test the next day, they are spending hours looking through pictures, answering page comments, and chatting with their friends on the site’s instant messenger. On the findings, students mostly spend their 30 minutes to 1 hour of using Facebook but take note that the time that students spend on chatting and video calling is not yet included. When people are connected online there are always something to talk about but when it is face to face interaction it becomes awkward to make conversation without social media. It also ruined relationship because Facebook builds up jealousy; which causes quite a bit of tension in a relationship, insecurities, due to the fact that it makes people compare themselves to others. Bullying is also the negative effect that can lead to depression and low self-esteem.

Using Facebook definitely comes with negative effects, but not everyone who uses this site is affected. Many users are able to use the site responsibly by not posting too much information and not spending too much time on Facebook. Although the social networking site includes some negative effects, it is still worth using. The site helps people to stay connected to friends and family, and share important or exciting news to a large group of people. The site is not completely negatively viewed, as long as a user thinks about how they are using it.

I. Recommendations

Time management, commitment and focus as the attitude help student decrease the negative effect of Facebook.

Researchers recommend some ways in which students can at least minimize the amount of time that they spend on Facebook.

Be offline in chat: Facebook chat is where you end up wasting far more time than you originally intended. This way you can minimize chat request from friends through Facebook. If you want to talk you your friends call them up instead of chatting them on Facebook.

Avoid apps and games. This is also the biggest time waster in Facebook. Games should be played not virtually but in the real world. Like playing games, why not choose a sport that interest you and try to practice it. This way you were able to avoid Facebook games and at the same time you were engage into physical activity that promotes a healthy lifestyle. Because on the researcher findings, 58% out of 100% students sometimes suffer some health disorders such as obesity, blurriness of sight and dizziness after using Facebook.

Also Facebook should make the privacy settings more clear and easier to use. Additionally, Facebook should monitor the amount of time a user spends on Facebook each time in order to prevent addiction.

This way students will be able to control the amount of time that they spend on Facebook.

Bibliography

1. Rosen, Larry. (August 2011) “Psychological effects of Facebook on Teenagers and its Overuse” Retrieved on: June 27, 2016, from https://www.wehavekids.com.
2. Fodeman, Dough and Monroe, Marje. (January 22, 2009) “The Impact of Facebook on our Students” https://www.ChildrenOnline.org.
3. Shukla, Amitabh. (March 12, 2015) “Top 10 Negative Effects of Facebook on Teens” Retrieved on: October 24, 2017, from https//www.paggu.com.
4. Ruiz, Rebecca. (October 21, 2011) “Facebook’s impact on Student Grades” from https//www.thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com

Facebook is a multi-billion-dollar social networking company that connects billions of people globally. Behind the scenes, and from the help of global marketers, the company uses a powerful strategy to acquire subscriber’s personal information. The company uses unique advertising techniques that coerce people into revealing more information about them, then they realize. Moreover, in-return, Facebook profits from it. This leaves critics concerned and asking questions about how the company will handle user’s information and who has access to this personal information. By applying improvements like Groups feature and Places feature in response only raises more questions about the company’s motives regarding users’ data, the company’s privacy policy, versus more ways of generating revenue.

Facebooks approach to privacy management can adversely affect users signing up or already using the company’s services. However, a lot has to do with the user’s awareness of the issue and exposure for someone to probably care. Facebooks tactful way of forcing you to ignore the lengthy fine print of its privacy policy and assume you are willing to provide as much data as possible without making you aware that you have to go in and change the privacy setting yourself constitutes deception. Users that educate themselves can quickly go in a change the privacy settings to their liking. Critics and users have agreed that the company has used unethical behavior and has done little to change its ways. In response to critics, Facebook made a public post about changing privacy information and users having access to their information. However, little has been done to change that policy or business strategy.

Advertisement revenue at the expense of the user is more important to Facebook than the privacy of the users itself. In response, and instead of changing the policy, Facebook released two new features, Group, and Places features. The features allow friends to have the ability to add people to groups on their behalf and give online friends the ability to check someone into a location without that person’s permission. Which has received backlash from critics because it does not answer or fix the issues of privacy/personal data but adds fuel to the fire and opens more doors to see behind the scenes. Furthermore, it is the opposite of what total quality management means. An increase in privacy-conscious users have taken control of their privacy on Facebook and have changed settings or deleted Facebook all together. Deciding not to wait for the company to change their relaxed policy or continue to tiptoe around what critics are arguing about.

As a user, it startles me about hearing what Facebook is doing with my data. At the time of me signing up for a Facebook account, I was unaware that my data was going to be used. I believe the cause of recent backlash, managers at Facebook are considering personal and environmental factors so to understand what the users of Facebook are feeling uneasy about. Of the three challenges companies face, globalization, workforce diversity, and ethics. The latter runs parallel with the company and the way they handle the privacy of users. Managers at Facebook are quickly educating themselves about how to conform to the issues arising with the increase in the amount of available information the company is gathering. When the company decided to take on this new business trend in 2004, I doubt they understood the full ramifications of what risks could occur, becoming a global competitor. Periodically I use the social media platform, and when I do, my security settings have been adjusted to private or friends of friends, depending on the information. Personal information is also kept to a minimum or nonexistent. Occasionally I will take a break and deactivate my account for a certain period as well.

Facebook has dominated the social media market for over 16 years and has made it where every industry is being rebuilt around social engagement. Industries such as retail, commerce, aviation, health, finance, and news all are benefiting and capitalizing on the Facebook platform. One of the company’s revenue streams is advertisement. Facebook gathers the information you willingly provided, and based on your demography interest, web search history, and social behavior create advertisements and broadcast that to every user’s Facebook feed. By using one’s data and tracking social behavior, Facebook is using a form of marketing that benefits themselves and other companies, which could lead to partnerships or buying out other companies based on users’ likings and usage. Features of a business that can offer something valuable, but Facebook cannot most likely become a part of Facebook. This happened with the social media site and cross-platform messaging application Instagram and WhatsApp.

Zuckerberg’s vision to revolutionize businesses through his company has my full agreeance. Businesses and whole industries have already been and will be rebuilt around social engagement like Sheryl Sandberg’s Facebook Chief Operating Officer mentioned. A lot of small startups, mom and pop shops, and medium-sized businesses use social media for work too. Many users benefit from the free marketing tool and use it as a resource for finding information, jobs, entertainment, shop, organize functions and meetings; may that be for work or pleasure. Concerns with Zuckerberg’s goal is still the use of personal data, selling that data, safety for all users, is big brother watching, and how will the company go about protecting its users and information.

When you create an account with Facebook they make you input pretty specific details like your relationship status, location, employment, things you like as well as other user’s online status in order to paint a picture of what your life looks like with all of your interests. With these interests and a general framework on your life, Facebook with that information gives you more relevant advertisements on your timeline. Studies show that the language and design used in Facebooks privacy section compel users to sharing more of their person info and data with the company (St.John, 2018). The goal of Facebook is to influence users to share more information with them the better, because once they learn and know more about you the more accurately it can feed you relevant subjects and ads. The dilemma in this case is that they monitor users and give that information to app developers/ advertisers. This is a concern as the storage of personal data and the size of Facebook users that they have is enormous, meaning they need protections and privacy controls that go beyond what Facebook is currently using.

This is very interesting because advertising is Facebooks main revenue. They will constantly be seeing what you do online and provides that research to advertisers (Laudon, 2020). Even worse, in 2018 Facebook would let other users download all the information on another user of Facebook even though there was no legal right to give out that info (Laudon, 2020). Facebook also has facial recognition meaning they always know exactly what you look like, so they can detect you when you can be tagged in a certain photo. The less privacy Facebook gives, the more its business model is effective. If they were to give more privacy to users, they would receive less data they collect and offer advertisers. In 2018 they reported their advertising revenue was at $16.6 billion (Gesenhues, 2019). Facebook is a free media platform for users, but they sell information to advertising to please the user based on what they learnt about the user’s interests. Low privacy leading to high profit advertising is Facebook’s main business model

Some weaknesses of Facebooks privacy policies is poor protection and privacy control. “Research found the Facebook uses interfaces to steer users to the least private options when creating an account” (St.John, 2018). People cannot even make privacy changes to default settings before completing a sign-up process. Facebook will direct users through confusing dashboard of policies in order to change anything (St.John, 2018). They are unorganized and hard to find on purpose. Not to mention that Facebook allows other users to collect others information without any permission. If this information is taken users are not notified and many of Facebook’s features are enabled when they launch without informing users about it (Laudon, 2020). If users did not use the “opt out” feature on Facebooks Privacy settings, then Facebook would assume they had the right to share user information. Facebook then decided to change their settings for there to be a “opt in” option and gave people the ability to disable it for good.

I don’t necessarily believe Facebook can have a great business model without fixing privacy issues. They are making most of their profits from advertisements and putting a greater security on privacy info will just decrease the amount they give out to advertisement agencies. Because of this, Facebook would need more user’s information in order to make ads specific based on user’s interests, which is invading people’s privacy. I think there are ways Facebook could increase security for privacy information or at least avoid using people’s information by first off letting users know their policy for using peoples Info for advertisement purposes, so people are informed that what they post online Facebook will be allowed to use it. With that, users could accept or decline if Facebook could have access to their data. Facebook has started to try and incorporate new rules on privacy protection because of criticism they have been receiving. They changed their “privacy policy in order for it to be easy when choosing their privacy preferences and know what they are agreeing to” (Laudon, 2020).

References

1. Gesenhues, A., Gesenhues, A., Gesenhues, A., & Gesenhues, A. (2019, January 31). Facebook ad revenue tops $16.6 billion, driven by Instagram, Stories. Retrieved from https://martechtoday.com/despite-ongoing-criticism-facebook-generates-16-6-billion-in-ad-revenue-during-q4-up-30-yoy-230261
2. John, A. S. (n.d.). CR Researchers Find Facebook Privacy Settings Maximize Data Collection. Retrieved from https://www.consumerreports.org/privacy/cr-researchers-find-facebook-privacy-settings-maximize-data-collection/
3. Laudon, K. C., & Laudon, J. P. (2020). Management information systems: managing the digital firm. Harlow, United Kingdom: Pearson Education.

“422 friends, yet I am lonely “. Social media has become an important part of daily life. So everyone who uses Facebook should know its advantages and disadvantages. Facebook has been invented in 2004 by “Mark Zuckerberg” and spread a lot. Facebook has become the most used social network in the world. Nowadays there are about 500 million persons use Facebook; It is used most by the youth aged between 18 to 25 years old, (Zuckerberg (2010)). Users of youth spend about 50 minutes of their day using Facebook on average, (Inside Facebook (2010)). A group of people thinks that Facebook has spread a lot and made some users introvert. They say there are a lot of activities to do out of the Facebook’s world. On the other hand, there is a group of people who believes that Facebook plays a big role in their lives and benefits a lot at least in communication. Facebook has an effective role in our society; as it provides easy communication, helps socializing and business.

The invention of Facebook has greatly improved the way people communicate with each other. Some people think that Facebook harms communication. Sending messages instead of meeting face to face weakens the communication between people. However, this is not true; Facebook makes people in different cities or countries communicate easily. Friends and families anywhere can communicate in a very easy way even if they are separated by borders and they can’t meet in person. People also can access Facebook from mobiles and this option is very useful for many users as there are about 1.74 billion mobile active users on Facebook, (Facebook(2020)). So there are many people prefer using Facebook as it has shortened long distances a lot. In the last year, social media users increased by 9.2%reaching 3.8 billion users in 2020, (Facebook(2020)).

Facebook has a great effect on socializing. Some people assert that using Facebook too much makes one depressed and introvert. Social media is a virtual life for people nowadays. So they think it would affect how people act with each other in reality. However, there is a growing body of evidence to the contrary. There are about 1.66 billion people use Facebook every day and interact actively (Facebook(2020)). Facebook’s goal was to help people build a community and make the world closer to each other. Users can interact actively in any group in addition to sharing their points of view and express their thoughts. they would be able to make friends with who share the same mind and thoughts. This would be helpful for introverts; they could make a lot of friends and meet them in person far from the social media world. “Users report using online social networks for relaxation, entertainment and socializing “(Ku et al., 2013; Park et al., 2009).

Nowadays Facebook is considered as a powerful platform for business and marketing. Some people believe that Facebook or social media, in general, don’t affect businesses as businesses have been done before the existence of Facebook. They think people can use telephones instead. Yet it is not true; Facebook has made marketing much easier. Facebook is very important to many users so if marketers use Facebook well it will help them a lot in their work. About 16 million business pages have been created until 2013 which considered as a big increase in this field, (Facebook(2013)). Furthermore, Local businesses have benefited a lot from Facebook for example in marketing in certain regions. About 42% of marketers say that Facebook is very necessary in their business, ( State of inbound marketing(2012)). A worldwide market is available via Facebook there are about 2.5 billion active users on Facebook, ( Facebook (2020)). This establishes Facebook as the largest network so marketers should make the best use of it.

In conclusion, Facebook became a part of everyone’s life; as it is very useful in communication, socializing and many businesses. What users like most about Facebook is that it helps to connect them with friends and relatives. It is a good place for social people and introverts to make friends.“Users report using online social networks for relaxation, entertainment and socializing “(Ku et al., 2013; Park et al., 2009). Besides, it is a creative way of marketing. Users can chat with anyone and make friends all over the world. This would be useful to share information, ideas, and experiences. There is a statistic that says that every 60 seconds there are 510,000 comments are posted, 293,000 statuses are updated and 136,000 photos are uploaded (The social skinny(2019)). Thus, with this huge number of users, every marketing and product would have its audience.

References

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5. Park, N., Kee, K. F., and Valenzuela, S. (2009). Being immersed in social networking environment: Facebook groups, uses and gratifications, and social outcomes. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 12(6), 729-733.
6. Nabi, R. L., Prestin, A., and So, J. (2013). Facebook friends with (health) benefits? Exploring social network site use and perceptions of social support, stress, and well-being. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 16(10), 721-727.
7. McEwan, B. (2013). Sharing, caring and surveilling: An actor–partner interdependence model examination of Facebook relational maintenance strategies. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 16(12), 863-869.
8. Ku, Y. C., Chu, T. H., and Tseng, C. H. (2013). Gratifications for using CMC technologies: A comparison among SNS, IM, and e-mail. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(1), 226-234.
9. Ellison, N. B., Steinfield, C., and Lampe, C. (2007). The benefits of Facebook “friends:” Social capital and college students’ use of online social network sites. Journal of Computer -­‐‑ Mediated Communication, 12 (4), 1143-1168. (2011).

Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook in 2004 so people and families could connect online. Since 2004 Facebook has become very accepted as a social website. Each year Facebook adds new qualities to stay ahead of the other social media companies. Facebook created a new live tool in 2016, which was supposed to be aimed towards celebrities and public figures (Newcomb, 2017). With this tool users can intermingle with others in real world time n Facebook. With this live tool Facebook has been able to make customers famous and capture protests, as well as police shootings. But since this live tool with Facebook has become so popular the audience have seen some horrific sights. Some people have taken this live tool to far and some people have seen some unfortunate events broadcasted such as people committing rapes, torturing people, torturing animals, suicide, and now Murder.

Legal or Ethical Duty to Rescue

Most people believe that Facebook is responsible for the acts of violence that is shown on Facebook. The question is to they have a responsibility under the law to help victims or prevent the crime. It is a fact that Facebook does not have any legal duty to rescue a crime victim. Some police officers preferred if you did not get in assist in helping the general public because that will put you in harm’s way and could cause you to become a hostage. In fact, that there is no legal requirement for someone to help a person in danger. There are certain cases, that the law may enforce a responsibility on someone to help rescue another if there is special relationship, that person produced the danger, or the person who, started to save the victim (Wechsler, 2013). Possibly Facebook has an ethical responsibility to help in rescuing a crime victim, it’s the honorably, correct thing to do, the company can produce devices to help. Presently Facebook has a procedure in place, which is to have a “team on call at all hours, prepared to react to any reports of content that may involve any type of violate shown on Facebook (Newcomb, 2017). At this point any content which is informed by any user is appraised to see if it abuses any of the standards set up by Facebook. If any reported content is established as producing damage to any individual or group of people, Facebook can distinguish the position of the crime and then inform the local authorities. If there is a situation of a live video, Facebook has the opportunity to help the victim by sending the proper help.

Proactive and Thorough Reviews

Social media plays a huge part in the essential rule proceeding the sort of subject that emerges on their programs. The subscribers make the posts, but social media have the staff that can delete the substance if it is needed. All social media policies need to be changed so they can oversee what is posted on their sites to make sure there are no criminal activate or bulling posted. There are several ways to monitor the kinds of post that are listed on the sites by doing a review of all content that gets posted before it is posted, which means add a delay on the program so they can see it first. This program would be able to check the information before it is posted before it could be shown on the social media for any content on their sites. The computerized program would be designed to glance at posts for certain words or phrases and examine any weblinks that are being shared. Everything that is established unsuitable would not be posted and the user would be informed that the post is under review and the post would be sent to an actual person to further review. This would allow posts that aren’t reported to be reviewed and reported to the proper authorities if needed.

Other ways to be additional preemptive and detailed with their evaluations is to review related circumstances in the identical means then create practices and strategies with solutions before the incidents is viewed. Facebook examines the circumstance and amount of informed content to establish the suitable proceedings. It is always good to have procedures to follow for reviews, it will guarantee that the post is thorough and stable. With a list of potential answers to occurrences will make reviews more practical because the person reviewing the posts can occupy less time straining to think out a solution and can work on acquiring help or eliminating the contents of the post in a suitable means.

Last of all, guarantee the reviewing team members are appropriately trained on what to do when reviewing the content. Employee education benefits both the business and the individual employees. Employee with training gain more knowledge and perform their duties in a better manner. After the killing of Robert Godwin Sr., Facebook proclaimed that they were going to hire 3,000 additional employees to review videos (Newcomb, 2017). Training is a critical factor for new employees. When it comes to Facebook and social media policies, each employee should obtain training on how to review and handle several contents. The training should specify what to look for and give sample situations for each employee. Training employees progresses with having actions and recommendations that should be discussed during the training classes.

Safeguards

Facebook tries to have a place where users can express themselves freely, but there are those times when users will use Facebook and other social media programs to show acts of violence. Robert Godwin Sr., killing caused quite a bit of users to become furious with Facebook for not already having these kinds of controls in place to avoid these types of videos from being broadcasted. Social media programs need to have safeguards in place to prevent these kinds of violence from being broadcasted. In March 2017, Facebook incorporated suicide prevention implements into Facebook Live. By incorporated tools like this into Facebook Live, viewers can report a video and get help to the person that may be taking into consideration the act of suicide (Newcomb, 2017). Facebook and other social media programs can expand this tool to be a safeguard against not just suicide but other violent acts from being publicized such as murder and bulling. When a Facebook user goes live all their friends are informed so they can view in real time. If the user’s friends believe the video being taped is unsuitable and they can report it stating that the video is showing violence. When the video is identified as being violent the live stream will be cut, and the proper authorities will be notified immediately. This could stop the acts of violence being broadcasted and permit the Facebook employees to attempt to send help for the victims.

The users would be extremely depending on reports of any and all subject matter that needs to be reviewed and perhaps removed because staff members cannot catch everything. Generally, by the time the video is reported it has by this time attracted quite viewing audience among user’s viewing and sharing the video. Social media programs can set up a protection that displays the quantity of times a videos and/or post is received. When there are many viewers the video can be removed temporarily until an employee can make an assessment and determine if the video requires to be eliminated permanently. Facebook has begun using photo-matching tools to stop reported pictures from being distributed by other users on this site and other social media sites. A third protection could be made by constructing this technology with the circulation monitoring. When a video is removed directly to the amount of circulation the photo-matching technology can stop the video or pictures from being shared pending the content is concluded suitable.

Ethics Officer or Oversight Committee

Facebook does not have an ethics officers but has a board of directors that supervises the business’s activities. The shareholders are represented by the company’s board of directors, which, helps to establish procedures, and produces main corporation decision, but they do not directly focus on ethics. Amongst the surge in unethical contents on Facebook and other social media programs, there should be some contemplation given to having an ethics officer. An ethics officer would describe to the board of directors about the video users, but dissimilar then the board their exclusive attention would be on ethics and ensuring there is an ethical environment. The ethics officer could help Facebook’s management create detailed choices, a code of ethics could help employees and the users to determine the company’s ethical standards. Importantly an ethics officer would be capable to help management discover ways to inspire ethical use.

Encourage Ethical Use

Businesses use code of ethics or ethic policies to prompt employees and inspire them to conduct ethical and professional attitudes. Facebook needs to encourage ethical use of their platform so they can create a code of ethics or reminders that users will have to accept before generating a post or going live. Users considering this reminder before they post will make them think twice about whatever they are posting and precedent to more ethical use. If a user prolongs unethical use of their platform, they could risk having their account shut off or having to pay a fee. The main point is to bring the users’ around to all the changes so Facebook is an ethical and stricter program.

Facebook and social media programs are confronting issues with content users post and in what manner to better control it. Managers are looking for ways to implement changes to prevent violence from being shown on the social media sites. Among the capacity of content that Facebook and other social media gets everyday it’s tough to screen all the contents, but management is obliged to the users to find way to halt the exposure to certain media.

References

1. Newcomb, A. (2017, April 17). Cleveland Shooting Highlights Facebooks Responsibility in Policing Depraved Videos. Retrieved from http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social- media/cleveland-shooting-highlights-facebook-s-responsibility-policing-depraved- videos-n747306
2. Guynn, J. (2017, May 3). Facebook Live violence horrifies users, who say Facebook’s still not doing enough. Retrieved from https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2017/05/03/facebook-live-violence-not- enough-mark-zuckerberg-users/101247030/
3. Wechsler, M. M. (2013, June 06). Good Samaritan Laws & the Duty to Help or Rescue Someone. Retrieved from https://www.thelaw.com/law/good-samaritan-laws-the-duty-to- help-or-rescue-someone.218/

Academic performance

One of the most crucial benefits Facebook brings to HUFLIT’s fourth year students’ life is the improvement in academic performance. The reason as to how Facebook can help with HUFLIT’s fourth year students’ academic performance is because the said social media platform has opened various ways to acquire knowledge for university students, as claimed by many researchers in their studies such as Wodzicki, Schwämmlein and Moskaliuk, 2012; Cooke, 2015; Manasijevic, Zivkovic, Arsic and Milosevic, 2016. University students in general and fourth year students of HUFLIT in specific, utilize Facebook and other social media spaces to serve their academic purpose by using them to exchange ideas related to schoolwork and create an educational community. This was proved in Hussain’s (2012) study which included more than 600 university students, nearly 90% of the participants confirmed that they indeed use Facebook for their academic activities. Furthermore, a study of Madhusudhan (2012) that included 160 researchers in philosophy and social studies at the University of Delhi, 71.25% of the participants said that they were using Facebook throughout their processes of learning and researching. Many people thought Facebook is mostly used for entertainment by university students, but Joshi, Sharma and Sharma (2016) claimed in their studies that the most important factor of Facebook usage by university students was academic resource, followed by useful information, perceived enjoyment, association and social influence.

Facebook does not improve HUFLIT’s fourth year students’ academic performance only by opens the door to more resources of knowledge, it also creates a useful educational environment for students. Social media platform such as Facebook has been equated to an educational community which gives peer feedback, provides identical learning and social backgrounds, and facilitates online academic communities (Selwyn, 2007). McGowan and Partridge (2014) suggested that students can make their educational environment better by forming more connections with members of the university community through peer groups.

Reportedly, university students frequently use social media like Facebook in an attempt to empower their educational activities and improve their academic performance (Zachos, Paraskevopoulou-Kollia and Anagnostopoulos, 2018). Finally, Mohamad’s research in 2011 stated that every time Facebook was included in the process of learning, students’ motivation and understanding was enhanced.

Social interaction

Another benefits that Facebook contributes to HUFLIT’s fourth year students’ life is the improvement in social interaction. Dahlstrom, Grunwald, de Boor, and Vockley (2011) found out that in 3000 university students, there are 90% of them who use Facebook. Social media, specifically Facebook, is now considered an essential part of building university communities, extending students’ social capital and creating opportunities for student-to-student communication as proved by many studies, (Davis, Deil-Amen, Rios-Aguilar &

Canche, 2012; Selwyn, 2007; Goode and Woodward, 2016) and fourth year students of HUFLIT are no exception. The results from a research of Ellison, Steinfield and Lampe (2007) showed that Facebook is indeed related to students’ attempt at establishing and maintaining their social capital at university and Goode and Woodward (2016) also stated that a social media space like Facebook can grant students with chances for casual engagement and community building. Therefore, it is not an exaggeration to say that Facebook has become an essential part of communication for HUFLIT’s fourth year students nowadays.

Related to this topic, Haythornthwaite (2005) classified relationships of university students with their classmates and teachers, or academic networks in general, as weak ties. This also applies to the fourth year students of HUFLIT. Aside from weak ties which are used to exchange knowledge and materials by students, Haythornthwaite (2005) also mentioned another possible form of relationship called latent ties. Latent ties were described as “a tie for which a connection is available technically but that has not yet been activated by social interaction” by Haythornthwaite (2002). In Ellison, Steinfield and Lampe’s (2007) research, Facebook was said to help students to turn latent ties into weak ties easier due to the way it provides a person’s information to the others, makes one’s connections to a vast range of people visible, and gives students the ability to identify those who might be useful for their academic purpose, thus creating the motivation to activate a latent tie and form a weak tie. To sum up, Facebook has turned those inactive connections called latent ties of HUFLIT’s fourth year students’ into more practical, useful connections called weak ties for their academic purpose.

Mental well-being

Besides broadening HUFLIT’s fourth year students’ social capital within university communities, Facebook also improves their life satisfaction and mental health. Mattanah, Ayers, Brand, Brooks, Quimby and McNary’s study in 2010 reveals that using Facebook reduces the feelings of loneliness for students, while Ellison, Steinfield and Lampe (2007)’s study discovered the relation between students’ bridging social capital and their subjective evaluation of well-being. Students with a lower frequency of Facebook usage were reported to have both smaller bridging social capital and lower satisfaction with university life than those who have higher frequency of Facebook usage and the same was true for self-esteem, Ellison, Steinfield and Lampe (2007). These findings can also be true to the fourth year students of HUFLIT.

Furthermore, Ellison, Steinfield and Lampe (2007) explained these effects as Facebook usage might help students with low satisfaction and low self-esteem to conquer their insecurities, because bridging social capital provides students with more information and more opportunities. Hence, HUFLIT’s fourth year students’ experience of university life will be improved along with their mental well-being.

Data collection is becoming easier for the companies because of social networking sites. People are using social sites to connect however they do not know that their private data is being used by companies for making money and they are unknowingly giving away their personal information which arise many privacy concerns. Facebook is a social networking site that allows user to interact with their friends and family even if they are far from them. Connecting with your long-distance friends and family has never been easy without Facebook. However, along with these connections Facebook comes with some potential dangers to your private data. While registering, Facebook requires the user to enter data such as name, email address, date of birth, gender, phone number and occupation. This data can be sold to various companies in the market which can make them millions of dollars. The information you provide is verified and Facebook takes the future members word for it and allows them to gain access to the website as long as their email has not already been taken. While registering the user is given option to read the “Terms and Regulations” but they can just mark the check box for it and skip the whole process of reading it. Inside these “terms” Facebook states “We do our best to keep Facebook safe, but we cannot guarantee it”.

By posting the Terms and Data Use Policy, Facebook is taking absolutely no legal responsibility for what happens on its website. Not only your personal data but your news feed data, your likings, your comments on posts, your live location is all tracked by companies. Every bit of the gathered data is used by marketing company to provide the user with appropriate adverts. Every day you give away so much of your data willingly. Examples include; the searches you make on Google, the places you check into on Facebook and the posts you share on Twitter (unless your profile is private and not public). Such sites have privacy policies in place that clarify how this information is being used–usually to enhance the products and services or to show you specific ads and consumers are expected to agree to this collection of data if they want to use it. And, once you sign up for Facebook, you’re enabling the giant social networks to see everything you’re doing on their network. Add this data to the information your surfing habits have already gathered, and the big internet companies know much more about you than you think. Such providers ‘ privacy policies are easily accessible, but they are usually written in broad terms and provide little guidelines, allowing them more leeway on how to manage the information they have gathered on you. Between 2015 and 2018, Facebook encouraged users to sign up for two-factor authentication (2FA), including texting a code to your phone number. What Facebook didn’t tell you is that the phone number was also being handed over to advertisers, according to the DOJ. As recently as November, 2018, Facebook was still asking for your phone number for 2FA without disclosing that it was also providing it to advertisers. Apart from phone numbers and email addresses facebook also collects “users’ bios, birthdays, family and relationships, websites, status updates, photos, videos, links, notes, hometowns, current cities, education histories, work histories, activities, interests, ‘likes,’ app activity, and status of being online.”( content desktop).

Facebook collects user’s data in many ways. Commenting on someone’s posts, playing games lie Farmville, and “like” button that may be the biggest source of information collector. As we “like” our friend’s posts we are participating in the image and reputation management by giving information to facebook networks on what interests and engages us. If the user is liking posts on climate change, global warming, heathcare and education then facebook has a pretty strong idea of what kind of causes we will support and could use that data to judge our voted candidates. In 2018 Facebook and Cambridge analytica was accused of using data of more than 50 million users in the favor of Trump in the US elections. Cambridge Analytica used the gathered newsfeed data to count the number of users in Trump’s favor and provide them with the news that involved trump and his good deeds. ( 50 million ) . “Like ” button can be used to track both the data and also store the data that we give voluntarily. To understand the working mechanism of “like” button we first need to understand the concept of cookies.

Cookies are a form of memory cells for websites, they are small files that a websites store on our computer. For example if I visit gap’s online store and add some t-shirt to my cart and then close it and then visit the gap’s website days later it will still identify me through the information stored in the cookie that gap put on my computer and show me the t-shirt that I stored in my cart. Cookies are important for information flow and tracking. Youtube shows me advertisements related to Gyms nearby my home and also food restaurants because I like pictures of fast food and watch gym trainer’s videos on my Instagram and facebook accounts. If you wonder why similar advertisements are shown to you that interests you then its due to cookies that websites put on your computer. Many websites have an embedded “Like” button that begs us to “Like Us on Facebook” with a simple click. When we visit these pages, Facebook may be receiving a significant amount of information, including the amount of time we spend on the page, what we clicked on, and the browser and operating system we use. “Like” Button works similar to the cookies as it store information of our likes on facebook and then uses that information to give user-targeted advertisements.” Facebook has teamed up with corporate data brokers Datalogix, Epsilon, Acxiom, and BlueKai to allow companies to display targeted ads on Facebook based on the data those brokers have on individual users. All of this information is essential to the success of Facebook’s business model, relying as it does on behavioral advertising, targeting content, and tailoring users’ online experiences. Knowing what might make users more or less willing to share personal information with Facebook, therefore, matters to both privacy advocates and information gatherers” (privacy desktop).

“In a series of updates from April, 2015, through July, 2016, Facebook stepped up its strategy of leveraging trust to encourage us to share.” (desktop privacy ) This strategy includes showing the posts that are liked by our facebook friends on the top of our newsfeed to develop a sense of trust. Facebook also shows the posts on which our friends have commented. The post that are liked by our friends also include the advertisements that appear to be as posts liked by our friends which tricks, confuses and manipulates us into clicking on that advertisement. “These tactics exploit the relationship between particular social trust and the propensity to share” (privacy desktop).

Facial recognition feature of facebook searches the photos of the users and let your friends and family tag you in their posts. This might seem useful for recognising your identity if its you or not. Facebook lets you turn on this feature however, over 30 million users were signed in for facial recognition without their consent.( content server).” According to The Montreal Gazette, a University of British Columbia study exposed Facebook’s security system when it failed to stop a large-scale intrusion in which personal information on Facebook users accounts were collected. Researchers said they collected 250 gigabytes of information from Facebook users by using bots, or computer-generated fake Facebook profiles controlled by programming”(explanatory study). These fake accounts were used to send friend requests to other users which could pose the threat of data theft and misinformation campaigns.()

Bibliography

1. Carole Cadwalladr, E. G.-H. (2018, march 17). Revealed: 50 million Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach.
2. Lilian Edwards, I. B. (2009). Data Control and Social Networking: Irreconcilable Ideas?
3. Roosendaal, A. (2011). Tilburg Law School Legal Studies Research Paper Series. Facebook Tracks and Traces Everyone: Like This!
4. Zimmer, M. (2010). But the data is already public”: on the ethics of research in Facebook. Ethics and information technology, 313-325.

Journalism, as a profession and an industry, has undergone constant change in order to conform to our society and its needs. With the invention of the internet in the late twentieth century, the world gained an almost immediate avenue for communication and content-sharing, with this came a new way to engage with news, social media. In the past, journalists were able to almost fully control the dissemination of information, especially in smaller communities where international news was rare and people relied on little more than word of mouth and the daily paper to learn of important events. The modern audience, in contrast, is no longer such a passive consumer. A new generation of readers has grown up in a time when the facts surrounding an event are just a tap away, and the older population is gradually following in their children’s footsteps. This, as well as the immense popularity of social media as a platform to express opinions and engage with content producers, means that journalism has been faced with the need to adapt in order to satisfy their readers. With just under fifty percent of all adults plugged into social media (Hermida et al. 815) and sixty-two percent of Americans currently using it to access news-related content (Eckberg et al. 148), this need for change is likely to only get more pressing in the coming years. Facebook in particular has become both a widely popular social media site, as well as an influential model of what features attract and secure users in the modern day. As such, Facebook will have inevitably impacted journalism in a variety of ways, from being an invaluable model for modern journalism’s online practices to acting as a distribution point for articles and existing as a public platform for producer-consumer communication. These adaptations have worked to alter the face of journalism for better or worse, and will continue to influence how the modern news consumer and the youth of tomorrow perceive and interact with the news.

The present state of journalism has become heavily intertwined with the online presence of journalists and the ongoing digitalization of news providers. Of the top twenty-five most viewed news sites in the United States, the majority had been well-known printed brands in the past (Thurman and Schifferes 775), with many further establishing themselves on Facebook via a “page” where they can provide links to their site’s published stories (Winter et al. 431-436). This move toward social media was a deliberate effort by the companies to meet the demands of an audience that would be unlikely to see the articles otherwise. Marchi described a distinct “generational shift” in news consumption, as the majority of people under the age of thirty are not subscribed to newspapers, whether digital or print, with a staggering eighty percent of younger readers unwilling to “read the news” in a traditional sense (246-247). Current trends, instead, point toward consumers using Facebook, as well as other social media sites, as their main hub for content-gathering and news-sharing, using it to filter what news they see while relying primarily on friends and family rather than news organizations to control their content consumption (Hermida et al. 815-824). This shift from scheduled publishing to user-distributed content has taken away journalists’ influence over when and how their audience accesses the news, greatly altering how journalism functions as a result. In order to maintain any sort of relevance in this digital era, news organizations have had to let their readers “take the reins” in a sense, putting their focus and funding into encouraging article-sharing through site widgets that mirror Facebook’s, embracing audience feedback and even crowd-sourcing article ideas.

Sharing features have become a prominent addition to digital news sites in the present in direct response to the popularity of Facebook and other social media sites. Most major online news channels have added social networking functionality to their articles, offering readers the option to “reblog” an article to their Facebook page, “retweet” it to their Twitter feed, or simply publish their opinions of the story in the provided comment section (Hermida et al. 815-824). These networking features not only allow the reader to interact with articles in a way that they are more familiar with, but these features also enable journalists to approach their readers not as passive observers, but as active influencers of who will see their work.

Article comment sections hold a similar function for news sites and Facebook news reposts, existing as an easy access point for discussion about the article’s contents, as well as providing valuable feedback for the author. An interview with Stanley, a professional in the industry, detailed the necessity of modern comment options, explaining that they “…encourage conversation and community involvement, as readers can bring up points that the reporter may not have thought of or offer insight from their personal experiences.” With the opportunity to comment comes heightened reader engagement with the content, which caters to current user tastes for interactive experiences. However, this popular method of audience participation presents its own problems that can greatly influence public perception of a story and, in turn, affect the journalist in ways not possible through traditional publishing methods. Online comments, especially those in Facebook comment sections that are linked to identifiable personal accounts, are extremely susceptible to what is known as an “opinion climate,” where contrasting opinions or personal anecdotes can shift perceptions of future readers away from the article’s intended message (Winter et al. 431). Negative or contradicting comments, harassment, or even simple heated debates between commenters can diminish the perceived power of the news story, either by spreading false information without a source, polarizing the audience, or pointlessly confusing new readers. When used for good, however, comment sections can be positive and promote further research into the topic. The immediacy of comment responses as well as the ability to engage and contribute with others have been noted as important to readers, as comment sections provide exposure to diverse viewpoints that can help those unfamiliar with the subject matter form an educated opinion on the topic themselves (Marchi 246-262).

Finally, article crowd-sourcing has become an effective method of connecting journalists with their readers, and Facebook has been a predecessor as well as a major contributor to this trend. Facebook not only presents itself as a medium for journalists to come and promote their work, but also as a forum for them to ask their “plugged-in” readers various questions, find sources, seek advice on article drafts, and even interact with “opinion leaders” that hold influence over readers (Ferrucci 10). These opinion leaders are a minority of readers who are well-connected, have amassed large followings, and are excellent sources of information while acting as unofficial middlemen that help distribute content to a wider public. Journalists have come to depend on these engagement methods more as time goes on, cementing their importance in the news-writing process and permanently altering the power dynamic at play in journalism for the foreseeable future.

Distinct from its position as a foundation for many news sites’ interactive elements, Facebook has also maintained a sizable amount of influence over news distribution itself through its existence as a popular social media platform. It is widely presumed that younger audiences today are uninterested in news, potentially crippling the industry’s growth, but this could not be further from the truth. A result of social media sites like Facebook and their drive to act as a multi-functional hub for their users is that an entire generation is being exposed to news in this unique way. The “engaged youth paradigm” posits that, rather than holding young readers to a standard set for a different generation, the Facebook news-gatherer should be viewed as a jack-of-all-trades rather than a noncommittal consumer (Marchi 248). For them, and for many others who are now accustomed to social media’s high-speed, personalized news feed, journalism is important, but the agency to choose when, where, how, and to what extent the reader accesses that information is almost completely up to them. This has created an online culture where everyone has the ability to personalize their news experience, allowing overshadowed voices to speak on diverse issues, though it has also helped create a feeding ground for misinformation.

According to Eckberg, “social media and peer-to-peer technologies have democratized the news” to the extent that influence over news has been given to the public, allowing them to “make news and breaking news” (148-149). This statement, while highlighting the positive attributes of civilian journalism, can also represent the detrimental effects social media can have on news, particularly in regard to the subject of “fake news.” The chronic spread of malicious- and intentionally-misleading news articles on social media in recent years has cast journalism in a bad light, with controversies like those surrounding the 2016 United States presidential election leading people to mistrust online news sources. This problem is only made worse by a lack of fact-checking in social media’s instantaneous sharing mentality, supported by the fact that over half of all Facebook users that click on and share articles spend less than fifteen seconds reading what they help distribute (Burkhardt 12).

The issue of fake news is also worsened by Facebook’s filtering algorithms, which have been taken advantage of by fake news sites in a way that harms users and journalists alike. Facebook’s news feed personalization methods, also known as its “social collaborative filter,” functions well as a means of allowing user autonomy through friend recommendations, but what it offers legitimate news sites that want to connect with readers, it has also given to fake news sites (Thurman and Schifferes 780). It has been proven that these algorithms can and have been exploited, leading to a complete disruption of the modern journalist-reader relationship. As Burkhardt explained, programs known as “bots” have been built and electronically transmitted through social media, functioning as tools that artificially inflate fake news article views to promote traffic and invade Facebook friend lists to steal consumer data for their creators’ personal or political interests (12). While Facebook has begun to take steps to ban fake news sites from advertising, as well as lowering their distribution rates (Eckberg et al. 148-156), only time will tell if these incidents have created a permanent rift between users and news organizations as a result of conditioned mistrust.

Facebook, as a social media site dedicated to immersing their users in their personal interests, has left its mark on journalism. Modern journalists, whether they model their sites after its multiple interactive elements, use it to redistribute their content to a wider audience, or actively engage with readers on the platform, acknowledge that Facebook has influenced the way that they do their jobs. While there are positive and negative results that have come about because of the popularity of social media sites in news consumption, its influence on the industry cannot be denied and will likely continue to grow in strength. Whether journalists accept social media as a contributor to this change, adapting to this trend and working to overcome any issues, or refusing to and risking that inevitable fall into obscurity, is completely up to them.

Summary of the purpose of the experiment

This experiment focused on determining the impact of the use of Facebook on attitudes, self-esteem, social adjustments, and performance of the undergraduate college students. The researchers were interested in investigating the relevance of Facebook to college students. The research sampled students in various levels of college (Kalpidou, Costin & Morris, 2011).

Hypotheses used in the experiment

The researchers used a number of hypotheses based on their review of literatures. The following are the hypotheses that were used in this study.

• H1a: There is a negative relationship between Facebook variables, self-esteem, and emotional adjustment to college.
• H1b: There is a positive relationship between Facebook variables and social adjustment to college.
• H1c: Facebook variables will predict different types of adjustment in each group.
• H2: First-year and upper class students differ in Facebook use and attitudes.

Operational definitions

In this study, social adjustment is defined as the ability to understand and be tolerant of the diversity within the social environment. On the other hand, self-esteem is defined as the perception that one has towards self.

Independent and the dependent variables

In this research, the independent variable was the use of Facebook. The dependent variables in this experiment were students’ self-esteem, their attitude, social adjustments, and their academic performance.

Summary of the results

This research determined that Facebook had a positive impact on the social adjustment on the senior students. First year students benefited more from Facebook in terms of building self-esteem and changing their attitudes on various social issues. However, it was observed that it had negative impacts on the performance of the students irrespective of their year of study.

Proposal of a variation of the experiment

If this experiment were to be done today, I would propose a change in the approach of data analysis. I would propose that the research should use mix method of data analysis.

Reference

Kalpidou, M., Costin, D. & Morris, J. (2011). The relationship between Facebook and the well-being of undergraduate college students. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and and Social Networking, 14(4), 183-189.

The text is Click, and Facebook revises privacy by Tim Dick. The article discusses the issue of privacy on the Internet taking Facebook as a bright example of how your interests and activity can be revealed to other users of this global social network. According to Veer (2010), privacy concerns exist among all people that use the internet.

The internet that facilitates sharing of information is exploited by unscrupulous users. Email and Facebook users are some of the countless victims of the deplorable state of privacy online. Facebook has set up various measures to guard against the breach of privacy which is a fundamental right.

However, the entity has performed poorly with regard to this aspect. As such, Facebook has been a recipient of massive criticism for its failure to uphold and guard privacy. It is true that Facebook seems to be failing in its efforts to secure the users’ private data (Veer 2012, p.150).

Social sites ought to protect their users’ information from online predators and sniffers whose key objective is to use the users’ information for their selfish gains. In social sites, massive data is at risk owing to such malpractices. Warfel (2008) attests that social sites contain a lot of personal information.

Such information should be secured so that no one without permission has access to it. Breach of privacy would have countless repercussions such as identity theft and defrauding. The article fails to highlight some of the implications of security lapses in Facebook. Privacy is the major concern in the article. Nonetheless, Facebook seems to treat such a concern lightly yet it pertains to colossal amounts of private information.

Thus, as stated in the article, ” Facebook says privacy and the trust of its users are important to it. ”We don’t share information we receive about you with others,” it says, with three large exceptions: when it has your permission, gives you notice of its intentions or passes on your information without identifying you” (Dick n.p.).

Privacy should be the chief concern for Mark Zuckerberg who is constantly reassuring users of the safety of their data. Nevertheless, many stakeholders question Facebook’s efforts to secure the privacy of users’ information (Warfel 2008, p. 7).

Facebook’s attempts to secure its users’ information have entailed creating a system which allows the users to make a list of people who can access their information. According to Abram (2012), online predators have the capability to bypass such a system set up by this organization.

In addition, an Australian critic has made allegations that the entity had been analysing trends based on the information posted by Facebook account holders. Such analysis would enable Facebook to forecast certain trends that can give them an advantage over their rivals. Information based on the above analysis would have a massive business value. This has been a key trigger of privacy breaches on Facebook and other social sites.

The assertions made by the article are valid since Facebook has about 800 million users. If information is power, than analysing information from the Facebook would precipitate massive information with great business value. Furthermore, the social site presents a massive pool of social site users who can be victims of various unscrupulous schemes perpetrated by criminals (Abram 2012, p.70).

The article paints an accurate graphic of the current state of privacy on Facebook and other social site. The entity seems to be distracted by its monopolistic rivals. These rivals, such as Google, are making massive revenues. Hence, Facebook seems to be overlooking grave matters as it enacts features aimed at out-doing its rivals such as Google.

The rivalry among these entities has triggered innovations that characterize the social sites sector. Nonetheless, vital concerns have been compromised in this rivalry. Facebook should prioritize the privacy of the users’ information. Thus, Facebook should build systems that can secure the users’ data. In conclusion, the article highlights privacy as the key concern in social sites by providing adequate factual information.

References

Abram, C 2012, Facebook for Dummies, John Wiley’s and Sons, New Jersey.

Dick, T 2011, “Click, and Facebook revises privacy”, The Student Modern Herald. <https://www.smh.com.au/technology/click-and-facebook-revises-privacy-20110930-1l1cr.html>.

Veer, V 2010, Facebook: The Missing Manual: The Missing Manual, O’Reilly Media Inc., California.

Warfel, E 2008, Perceptions of Privacy on Facebook, Rochester Institute of technology, Master’s Thesis.