Social network sites corrupt students
There's a digital revolution taking place as we speak and it seems to be overwhelming the entire nation with no end in sight.
I’m talking about the social networking craze. As of 2009, there were more than 722 million people using Facebook alone, with millions of others using sites like MySpace and Friendster. And the usage of Facebook has gone up a stupefying 566 percent from a year ago according to a poll done by Nielsen Online, a market research firm.
It may seem fine and dandy, but this is actually just the first of several alarming statistics to report. The poll also said that one out of every 11 minutes spent online is spent on a social network or blogging site, totaling 45 billion minutes.
This means that in one month, the entire world will have been on a social network site for the equivalent of around 85,500 years.
The average social network user checks his or her Facebook for an average of three hours and 10 minutes per month. That’s a day-and-a-half per year.
Notice a trend?
It gets better (or should I say worse). Another survey done by Retrevo, Inc., a consumer electronics site, showed that 48 percent of the respondents update a social network site immediately after waking up.
Some people don’t even bother walking to their computers: 28 percent of iPhone users check their social network sites in bed. A whopping 54 percent of respondents said social network sites were the main places they got their news.
If the trend hasn’t become apparent, stop looking at Facebook and pay attention to this column. We are becoming addicted to social networks.
"This could cause problems in their real lives as it consumes more and more of their time and attention," Dan Olds, an analyst with The Gabriel Consulting Group, told ComputerWorld this week.
There are so many better things that can be done rather than being on social network sites. Imagine what could be done with an extra three hours during the course of a month.
Early last year I left Twitter. Talk about a major waste of time. Twitter is about as useful as a lighthouse when the power is out. Nobody on that site has anything meaningful to say, myself included.
Basically celebrities just talk about all the mundane things they are doing and other people – who probably don’t have lives – sit around and comment on them.
And Facebook isn’t any better. I don’t care what you’re a fan of on Facebook. No, I don’t want to join your Mafia Wars. No, I don’t want to take a quiz about your personality. Shouldn’t you be studying?
Before leaving Facebook, I probably had fewer than 80 friends. I systematically went through and weeded out people I truly wasn’t friends with. If I don’t talk to you on a regular basis, chances are we weren’t friends on Facebook. As far as I’m concerned, if I have your cell phone number, then I can contact you with that.
And as much as we try to keep things private, nothing is truly private on the Internet. Employers and schools are beginning to look at social network sites when looking at applicants.
As much as you want to hide those pictures of your wild and crazy weekend, once you put them online, someone will find them. It’s bound to happen.
I say we need to leave social network sites. We need to reclaim our lives from Facebook and Twitter and our computers...
Before it’s too late.
