The Pros And Cons Of Social Media

In today’s society, it is rare to come across someone who is not on at least one social networking site, whether it be on the most popular Facebook site, or on one of the other billion online networking sites. What began as a source for young adults has now become well-liked with far younger ages, In fact there are “. . . over 7.5 million children younger than 13 are on Facebook . . . ” (Graber). With each day social networks popularity increases, and the immediate result seem excellent. Each of these sites gives a vast amount of options of what to post, from a simple status update that might tell the users ' friends what he/she are doing, or feeling, to what movie, music, restaurants, and events they might like. Many use it as an outlet to

“Social networks such as Facebook make such [“intimate”] information available in non-threatening ways. . .” (Rosenwald). Facebook allows its users to access to an enormous amount of information, from their most insignificant of “likes”, to where the immediate location of another social media users. Using this information, individuals are able to come up with premises for conversations. Online conversation becomes much easier when all the information a person needs to know about someone is literally at the click of a mouse. However, when meeting people offline, one is not so fortunate,"Someone who uses Facebook might be less anxious with that person (someone they already know) face-to-face, but they may not be learning to feel less anxious when meeting other people at a party . . ."(Rosenwald). With many shy people Facebook has become a cheat sheet, and many feel stranded in real conversations without these helpful hints. "In fact, anxiety might increase in those cases" because the people don 't have the information they glean from Facebook to fall back on” (Rosenwald). This causes them to fade into the background, unsure of how to approach or what to say. In addition, even though many people gain confidence through online interactions they still report feeling friendless. With many left saying, "I don 't feel like I have 180 friends. It 's not like I have 180 friends that I can go hang out with. I don 't think I have this great social life because I have 180 friends." (Rosenwald). With Facebook constantly trying to provide more friends, users feel like they do not have a sufficient amount. Because of this pressure, it is incredibly hard not to feel lonely, especially when looking at other people’s profiles and seeing the hundreds,