The Pros And Cons Of Social Networking

Just as the way internet has helped change the way people use it for beneficial needs like research, school projects, to buy movies, or organize vacations, it has also changed the way people use it, unbeneficially through social networking, to interact, make friends and invite people to parties. People all around the world use social networking sites for a variety of purposes, as there is also a wide range of these sites to choose from. A lot of people waste their time on these social networking sites. “In July 2012 Americans spent 74.0 billion minutes on social media via a home computer, 40.8 billion minutes via apps, and 5.7 billion minutes via mobile web browsers, a total of 121.1 billion minutes on social networking sites.” Social networking is the use of dedicated websites and/or applications to communicate informally with other users or to find people with similar interests to oneself. Even though social networking sites can help people who are socially isolated, it can also harm people in many negative ways.

Social networking sites can help people who are socially isolated or shy, connect with other people. By looking at the following statistic, we can get an idea of how many shy and isolated teens feel that social networking sites can help them connect with people. “More than 25% of teens report that social networking makes them feel less shy, 28% report feeling more outgoing, and 20% report feeling more confident (53% of teens identified as somewhat shy or "a lot" shy in general).” The above statistic shows that 53% of teens felt that they were less shy and more outgoing and confident. Social networking sites are a place for teens to put up their own thoughts and ideas to whatever they like without being criticized for ...

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...fact shows how these sites affect the GPA of students. Social networking sites are becoming a huge distraction as there is always something happening on these sites. Someone will eventually post or tweet something about their life, and these post and tweets seem very interesting, when you have to study. “Two-thirds of teachers believe that social media does more to distract students than to help academically.” Usually students think that they are going to only check one of these sites, for about 5-10 minutes, which then eventually turn into 45 minutes. Social networking sites have a bunch of ads being advertised all over their pages, so even if a student plans on spending just a few minutes, they will get distracted by those ads, which then causes students to waste time on the internet, on these sites rather than researching something else to help them academically.