How Older Participants Perceive Facebook

This article, written by Alan Norton, addresses several reasons why people should not use social networking sites. In Norton’s first points, he mentions several legal issues and privacy concerns that come along with social media. Norton also describes the emotional effect that these sites can have; with their usage comes along abuse and peer pressure. Furthermore, Norton’s last point is the plain fact that social networking is just not for everyone. Giving real-world examples and addressing the negative aspects of its usage support the author’s argument by not using social media. Norton’s article is aimed at the percentage of society that is currently active on social

Social networking is the mainstream way to communicate with anyone. Teenagers are obsessed with social networking, no one calls each other unless it’s extreme circumstances or their mother. Sharing pictures, sharing life stories, and sharing opinions online has been the way of life and the norm for kids growing up with computers and smart phones. The parents to this generation have not grown up in the same environment and have different standards for online activity. In the Article “ 10 Reasons Why I Avoid Social Networking Services” written by Alan Norton, he lists why he does not use social networking services. His personal beliefs are backed up with statistics and hold true to many people in his generation but not in the younger ones.

Social media is described, by the Merriam-Webster dictionary (2015), as “forms of electronic communication (as Web sites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (as videos)”. As few as 10 years ago the term social media was yet to be coined, but within that decade the use of these blogs, websites and sharing platforms has increased exponentially with no plateau in sight. From creating Instagram accounts for household pets, to sharing Halloween themed baking ideas over Pinterest, people today have access to social media outlets for almost everything. Today about 74% of people ages 18-65 use some form of a social networking site (Pew, 2014). Facebook takes the lead in social media usage with about 71% of those adults. LinkedIn and Pinterest are tied for second at 28% of users, 26% use Instagram, and Twitter falls last in the top 5 most used social medias with 23% of users (Pew, 2014). In September of 2013 the Pew Research Center measured that 90% of adults ages 18-29 used these social media outlets on a daily basis, which is an astonishing increase from the 9% that was measured in February 2005 (Pew, 2014). Due to the fact that young adults are increasingly involving themselves in these online platforms, it is very important to understand the long term and psychological effects (such as depression, social anxiety,

The rapid growth of technology in our society has become more dominant than it was in the 17th and 18th century. Today, technology is used for almost everything in our day to day lives. But the most common usage of technology is for communication and industrialization. However, every good thing has its disadvantage if it is over used, and since technology has become very dominant, it is used by both young and older people but more predominant among the youth of the today. Even more, technology has brought about social networking such as Facebook, Twitter, my space, piazza.com, instagram, tango, and last but not the least texting. According to socialnetworking.procon.org, “47% of American adults used social networking sites like

The purpose or hypothesis of this study addresses the anatomy of the Facebook network, communication behaviors and network composition, private messages and public communication, and the psychological implications of Facebook use.

The social media is widely used in this generation, as 68% of American adults use Facebook, and 28% of them use Instagram, while 26% for Pinterest, and 21% for Twitter (Greenwood et al.). Besides, the Consumer Reports magazine states that “more than 7 million active users of Facebook were under the minimum required age of 13” and “over 5 million were 10 or younger” (Strom and Strom).

Due to the international triumph of Facebook (FB) and other social networking sites (SNS), studying the digital divide between younger and older adults is popular amongst researchers. Further, researchers attempt to discover and inform professionals on how to bridge the gap. The purpose of this research is to understand the influence of age on FB users. FB was selected for this study due its popularity, having a membership population of 1.23 billion monthly users, including 12 million Australian monthly users (Ross 2014). Consequently, this study is derived from the research proposal written by Green et al. (2015). This study investigates the digital divide between younger and older users of FB. The researcher will attempt to determine what impact this digital divide has on FB users. This study is significant because it demonstrates that the digital divide between younger and older users of SNS is due to the attitudinal and motivational aspects of both groups. In addition, the unhindered technological socialisation of both groups is needed to appreciate the benefits of SNS.

Social media has taken the world by storm. Facebook currently has more than 1 billion active users, which is three times the number of people who live in the US. With so many people using Facebook it comes to no surprise that it has been made to have a negative influence from concerns over privacy, to people spending hours on the site and ultimately becoming addicted to it. But Facebook can also be a useful tool when used correctly, it helps people stay in touch, make new friends and it cures boredom.

Social media users are most ordinarily young adults, aged 18 to 31. Three-quarters of adult Internet users under age 25 have a profile on a social media site (Lenhart, 2009). Facebook is recorded to be the most well-known social networking website with over one billion users (Sophy, 2013).

Hayes, van Stolk-Cooke and Muench (2015) suggest that age is a significant factor in exploring differences in how Facebook is used. This study looked at how participants utilise Facebook and participants’ perceived well-being outcomes. Data were collected via an anonymous survey that asked

Social networking sites, are consecutively useful tools and time wasters. Kristy Young 's Study, "Social Ties, Social Networking and the Facebook Experience", investigated how adults use Facebook, highlighting the tools they used. It was found that the main reason adults use Facebook was making and maintaining connections, "Sixty-nine percent of respondents believe online social networking activity is ‘somewhat important’ to ‘very important’ to enable communication with others" (Young, 2011). Participants remarked that connecting over Facebook is convenient and makes it easy to keep in touch with friends; whom you may not see all the time. It was also noted that connecting with these people on-line can

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Myspace, etc. There are countless amounts of social networking sites utilized on a consistent basis throughout the world! Age ranges from as low as 10 years of age to an adult. All these Networking sites require only a device that allows applications of these sorts to become downloaded. The majority may reason, “Hmm, I don’t see anything wrong with this and a matter of fact, I actually love the idea.” But, in contrary, these fast-growing social sites may expose or lead to many preventable situations and influence the youth and show them things they’re not mentally prepared to see at an early age. 3 Sociological Perspectives we are going to discuss is Functionalism, Conflict, interactionism.

Facebook, a social networking website, has changed the way people communicate with each other. A social networking website is an online platform that allows users to create a public profile and interact with other users on the website. Facebook has even changed our most personal and private conversations and how they are conducted around the world. Since the internet’s birth in 1983, this trend of online communication has been growing. Created in 2004, now registered with more than one billion participants, Facebook’s user numbers surpass even the top four social networking websites combined. According to Wikipedia statistics, Instagram has 300 million registered users, LinkedIn has 200 million users, Classmates.com has 50 million users, and Flickr has 32 million registered users. To be further convinced of the claim that Facebook indeed changes the way we communicate, you would only need to create your own Facebook account and start participating in their social networking experience. Technology and internet usage is fused into every aspect of our society including the style of communication. The launch of Facebook in 2006 also enabled other devices such as touch phones, interactive tablets, and even advanced cars with their own networking capabilities starting in 2007. Facebook is a multibillion-dollar company and is highly recognized for connecting more people than other networks. Facebook’s long-term success can be attributed to providing entertainment, world news, and

Facebook is the most used social network on social media with a huge base of 100 Million users which makes it 53% of total internet users. More than 80% of those users access Facebook via their mobile phone. It has been adding half a million new users in its bracket every day. Due to its immense popularity, the large companies are investing around $100 million on Facebook advertising per year. Interestingly, statistics of India shows that people using Facebook between the age bracket from 20-39, are the highest; accounting to 88 million people. Unlike what is commonly thought that females use social media more than males, 67 million users out of 88 million are males in the age bracket of 20-39 years.

Other scholars have continued to criticise the over-reliance on Facebook in this field of research. Stoycheff and colleagues (2017, p.9) point out that 559 (84.3%) of the reviewed publications were single-medium studies that examined one SNS in isolation. This represents a burgeoning literature on the effects of Facebook use, but we oftentimes forget to ask, why we are studying Facebook in the first place despite the wealth of alternative platforms. Single-platform often studies run the risk of potentially omitting important distinctions between different SNSs in terms of their social affordances, audiences and uses. Furthermore, focusing on one particular SNS paints only a “partial picture” of how people use and are affected by social media (Kim 2014, p.2). This may limit the generalisability of studies due implicit biases towards particular user groups, usage patterns, platform policies and social affordances. Examining a social media platform in isolation, as opposed to being part of a larger social media environment, may thus inadvertently inhibit the reliability, generalisability and interpretation of results.