The Impact Of Age On Participants ' Perceptions Of The Sns, Facebook

We tend to idolize people’s lives based on how happy they seem to appear on social media then believe we must act the same way. With one popular social network, Facebook, gives people the ability to stay connected and share with their friends/family. Having a Facebook page is now an expected part of being online. This online website is surprisingly causing young adults to feel sad,

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 networking is quickly becoming more and more popular. I am going to investigate exactly how and why it influences people lives. I'm going to specifically look at different age groups and see if there is any pattern in their lifestyle. I will find my information from books, articles, news stories, the internet and people’s experiences and opinions. I will interview a whole range of people so I can get more of a range of opinions from teenagers to OAP’s to see if there is a general feeling for different age groups. My essay will address many questions such as are people’s opinions affected by their age? Does it influence people’s lives in different ways because of their age?

“Our community now has more than 1.55 billion people, including more than 1 billion people active every day,” says Mark Zukerburg, the creator of Facebook, on his own Facebook page last year. As one of the most popular social media sites in the world, Facebook has been adopted by an increasing amount of people over the past decade. The number of users on Facebook indicates how Facebook plays an important role of socializing and communicating in modern age life. Since Facebook allows users to see their friends’ updates and access Facebook on a mobile device, it has a tremendous impact on its users in several aspects. People may ask, “how does Facebook impact its users?” Some people suggest that Facebook creates negative consequences, such as distracting students in class. However, do all users experience these negative consequences? Sociologist Everett M. Rogers argues that the consequences of innovations, whether they are anticipated or not, can be perceived as positive or negative. Since Facebook does not differ from user to user, rather that it is the users that are different from one another, Facebook’s consequences vary from individuals. Even though some criticize how Facebook influences people negatively, depending on how the individual uses it, Facebook can positively impact users through sparking creativity, providing convenience, and creating change.

Social media is the term that is used to refer to applications and websites that allow people to interact and stay connected (Nations, 2016). Although, the creation of social networking sites is relatively recent, it has rapidly become a prominent part of billions of people’s lives worldwide. For example, between 2012 and 2016 the number of monthly active Facebook users increased by 83% (Statista, 2016). As a result, investigating the effects of social media on people’s psychological wellbeing has become a popular area of research. However, the combination of findings from these studies are inconclusive as to whether social media has a negative or a positive impact on our psychological wellbeing and because social media is so widely used this is an important question to address. Huppert (2009) stated that “Psychological wellbeing is about lives going well. It is the combination of feeling good and functioning effectively” (p. 137). This essay will focus on Facebook, in particular, as it’s the most widely used social network and has over 1.5 billion monthly active users (Smith, 2016). It will discuss research that has investigated the effects of Facebook on life satisfaction, academic performance and psychiatric disorders which are all related to psychological wellbeing. It will conclude that research mostly suggests that social media, in particular Facebook, is harmful to our psychological wellbeing.

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,

A website article by (Shruti Tripathi Chopra 2015) stated that in 2008 Facebook made and estimated $300 million, that rose to a profit in 2014 of $2.9. The positive implications of social networking sites have no boundaries. Communication between people in the past was, either over the phone or via letter, just to mention a few. (Pewinternet.org 2005) published that just 7% of American adults used social networking sites, and then rising to 65% by 2015. As a result, in this growth and popularity, jobs have been created to meet the demands of social networking sites. It was surely inevitable, that the growth and impact of social networking sites would influence how most of us live our lives today.

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

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.

A matter of contention prevalent within the media, several studies have shown that social networking – Facebook in particular – can have detrimental effects on our wellbeing. Researchers from the University of Michigan assessed Facebook usage over a fortnight and found that the more people that used it, the more negativity they experienced concerning their day-to-day activities; as well as over time, incurring higher levels of dissatisfaction with their life overall.

The first article is an article by Lauren A. Jelenchick, Jens C. Eickhoff, and Megan A. Moreno (2012). They evaluated the use of social media networking site Facebook its association with depression among older adolescents. Older adolescents’ ages range from 15 to 20. According to the American Academy of

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’

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

Social media like Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat are few examples of modern technology and are used by billions of people around the globe. Today social networking sites playing important role in our life. However the use, may be excessive use, of Facebook might be harmful to us to some extent. A study conducted by University of Michigan researchers claimed that “Facebook causes depression”(Kross 2). Facebook use predicts declines in subjective well-being instead of enhancing it. It is generally believed that socialization is good for psychological health. In fact this is true subject to some pre-set criteria. But socialization through Facebook is harmful. The study is the first published research that examined influence of Facebook on young adults. The focus was how happy they are and how satisfied with their lives over time. They researchers claimed that the more people used Facebook during one time period, the worse they subsequently felt. On the surface, Facebook provides communication tools for fulfilling the basic human need for social connection. But instead of enhancing human well-being these findings suggest that Facebook undermine it.

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