Sunday, September 19, 2010

The Bad Things about Facebook

As one of the most popular online social media in the world, Facebook provides lots of good things for its members.

For me, Facebook enabled me to reconnect with many friends that I have never met for decades, maintain relationship with existing friends and relatives, as well as make lots of new friends from all over the world.

But as any other things in life, Facebook also has its bad things, as mentioned in the article below that I have quoted from Kompas.

 
People who constantly check Facebook may be lacking in self-esteem, a study found 

KOMPAS.com - Using Facebook is the online equivalent of staring at yourself in the mirror, according to a study. Those who spent more time updating their profile on the social networking site were more likely to be narcissists, said researchers.

Facebook provides an ideal setting for narcissists to monitor their appearance and how many ‘friends’ they have, the study said, as it allows them to thrive on ‘shallow’ relationships while avoiding genuine warmth and empathy. They also tend to use the site for promoting themselves to friends or people they would like to meet, the study concluded.

Researcher Soraya Mehdizadeh from York University in Canada asked 100 students, 50 male and 50 female, aged between 18 and 25 about their Facebook habits.

They all took psychology tests to measure their levels of narcissism, which the study defined as ‘a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and an exaggerated sense of self-importance’. Those who scored higher on the narcissism test checked their Facebook pages more often each day than those who did not.

There was also a difference between men and women – men generally promoted themselves by written posts on their Facebook page while women tended to carefully select the pictures in their profile.

The findings, published in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behaviour And Social Networking, also suggested that those with low self-esteem also checked their Facebook pages more regularly than normal.

This may not be altogether surprising as it is widely thought, however contradictory it may appear, that narcissism is linked to a deep-rooted lack of self-esteem. Miss Mehdizadeh admitted that not everyone would appreciate her findings.

She said: ‘I think people get sort of defensive about it – like, “I don’t use my Facebook for that reason” – because it’s a label that you don’t want to be slapped with.’

Facebook has more than 500million users worldwide and is the world’s biggest social networking website, but it has been involved in a number of controversies.

A study earlier this week showed that the grades of students who use Facebook while they study, even if it is only on in the background, are 20 per cent lower on average than those of non-users.

15 comments:

PJ said...

Very Good article. I am on Facebook, but I don't mess with my profile. I have changed the picture once (because of a retro picture (I put up my 2 year-old baby picture, then at the end of the week I took it down. Other than that no changes. I get on there ever once in a while to talk to my out of town relatives, and check to see if there is any feed back for my blog. I do have low self-esteem (I will give you that) but Facebook doesn't do anything for me in that area. I'm 56 years old and I don't have a narcissitic bone in my body. The ONLY BAD thing I can see about Facebook is that if a person isn't careful they can become addicted to it just like tv, video games, computer games, or checking their blogs for comments. Other than that I see nothing wrong. Just don't make it public if you are going out of town. A while back I read on a blog where she said she was going out and her house got robbed. If I remembe correctly, it was some "local" Facebook friends".

God Bless!
PJ

Unknown said...

Hi Pj,
Thank you for sharing about your experiences with facebook and also other people's.
I agree that as long as we are can control ourselves in using facebook and not addicted addicted, it would be okay.

Kira Permunian said...

informative post... I agree with that study.. aside from that - I guess we should be aware of cybercriminals roaming around facebook. Identity thieves really suck.

I Hope facebook would do something for these problems.

Unknown said...

Seotrollverse,
Let's hope that Facebook would be able to find a way to prevent the cybercrimes.
Thank you for dropping by.

Unknown said...

Hi Harry, Facebook is as good as it is bad. For me its just about seeing what my old friends around the world are up to really and staying in contact with family. I do post photos and albums on there but I am not as active as I used to be. You should visit Lamebook to fully understand how it should not be used.
Facebook is here to stay whether we like it or not. But don't forget how we all like to look into other peoples windows at night when the lights on, Facebook is becoming the cyber version of that...

Unknown said...

Hi Luke,
I agree with you that Facebook is as good as it is bad, but it is here to stay whether we like it or not.
For me FB, like Twitter, Blog Catalog and other online sites are supplementary to my blog which is the center of my online activities.

Unknown said...

I use facebook to promote my blog posts, and to keep in touch with online friends and relatives..

Unknown said...

Hi Peter,
I think it depends on intention of the person who are using FB.

Catalin B. said...

Facebook is a fun way of staying in touch with old friends, share pictures and a little bit of blog promotion. At least that is what I am using it for.

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Unknown said...

I use Facebook to promote my blog and writing too. There's very little personal info there. Plus, I have been working on a Keep Me Safe Campaign which targets to increase awareness on internet safety. If anyone else would like to join in, share or pass the word, it would be greatly appreciated.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_160723513975744
http://peacefrompieces.blogspot.com/p/keep-me-safe.html
Cheers - Dora
http://peacefrompieces.blogspot.com/

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