The New Age : Pros And Cons Of Facebook

Since the Bulletin Board System there has been hundreds, and counting, of social networks created: most notably Twitter, Facebook, Kik, Snapchat, and Instagram. Today there are just over 3 billion active Internet users (45% of the world’s internet users), 2.1 billion of those people have social media accounts (Jeffbullas.com). People use social media for many numerous reasons. Most use social media to stay close to relatives and maintain social ties. Some of people’s most essential daily needs are accounted for by social media: whether it be interacting with friends or coworkers, following politics, or following the latest fashion trend set by the Kardashian

Nowadays, people connect each other by social media. Facebook, a virtual community, is one of the most popular social websites. Most of the other websites allow users to create an account in an expressway by logging their Facebook account. For example, Tinder requires daters to use their Facebook account to create profiles instantly. Connecting to Facebook, the users are ready to use Tinder. It makes a profile of photos and information gotten by his or her Facebook account. Also, Facebook helps players to save games. Since the players started connecting Facebook during playing games, it automatically records the information, scores, or the process of the game that has been playing for a long time, so the players feel comfortable to play without worrying losing all the data. However, is it a real community? Web sites and social mobile apps are popular and necessary for people to connect over the world, so website designers and mobile programmers get high salaries. Thus, we cannot deny that virtual community is a real community because of three advantages: supporting users to get what they need, providing the sense of stability, and accepting us for who we are.

Facebook embraces the networking capabilities of the Internet by allowing individuals to connect with others through sharing of personal or professional information and interests. Professional sites can be set up by groups, organizations, and businesses. They can be completely separate from an individual’s personal Facebook page. Instead of ‘friends,’ a professional or organizational Facebook page has ‘fans’ or users who ‘like’ the page. This is an important distinction in the use of social media by healthcare professionals concerned with privacy or boundary issues. Twitter is considered a micro-blogging platform which means entries are limited to 140 characters. Twitter is the fastest growing social media platform because of its versatility and ability to quickly hyperlink to external sources of information. Again, individuals can have both a personal and a professional or organizational Twitter account. Both Facebook and Twitter are free applications, as are most social media tools, enabling a larger sector of the general public to be able to access these

In the modern and technological society which we live in today social media plays an integral part in everyday life. Social media is an online tool which allows people to communicate, share data and form groups with others sharing common interests. On social media platforms users can forms virtual communities or networks exchanging information. (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010). Social media has become such a big part of life that the term ‘Facebook addict’ has been introduced into the urban dictionary.

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,

Light, D. (2004) ‘Making the NHS more like Kaiser Permanente’, BMJ, 328(7442), pp. 763–765. doi: 10.1136/bmj.328.7442.763.

“Social media allows people to connect with each other to create and share information. It is people-powered communication, an authentic dialogue motivated by a basic human desire to share information” (CIPD, Social Media and Employee Voice Report 2013). ‘Click’ and my message is on its way to my friend’s Facebook inbox hundred of miles away. The astonishing speed of how quick we can communicate in today’s societies, all thanks to social media. The invention of Facebook simplified everything we know about communication. We can connect to people whenever and wherever, sharing information has never been more convenient and exciting. In Shane Hipps’ Article, “ Is Facebook Killing Our Souls?,” he has no intention to impede technological advancements, instead he wants users to understand technologies with insights. According to my research, although Hipps ' points has some merits, I disagree with him because he overgeneralized the impacts that Facebook and other social media has on users’ behaviors and identities.

This can be seen as a powerful web-based social platform combined with internet technology and calculation functions, suggest Kallinikos and Tempini (2013). Making a success of social network sites for relaying health information relies on patients self-reporting. Any data relating to serious medical conditions is dependent upon patient experiences, something that would not be possible on professional healthcare sites, the researchers point out while noting that any data reported from patients would be unsupervised or

Not only do these sites provide clinical topics, they also provide diverse subjects from ethics to career strategies. Clinical education is also improving due to the communication capabilities provided by social media. Many studies have described the use of social media to enhance the understanding of communication, professionalism, and ethics. Not only medical centers but universities are also using social media to increase access to academic libraries. “A 2011 survey also found that 38% of pharmacy faculty members use Facebook for teaching, with half reporting that they plan to use social media in the future. In one example, an instructor in a geriatric pharmacotherapy course at the University of Rhode Island used Facebook to encourage class discussions and to connect students with senior citizens who had volunteered to participate in the course. This experience improved student perceptions of older adults and also introduced the senior citizens to Facebook” (Ventola, C). Health care organizations are using social media for many purposes whether for marketing products and services to promotions and fund-raising. The use of social media whether for health care organizations or patients provides benefits that only seem to become greater with social constantly growing every day.

Social media is an ever-growing digital, content-based communications based on the interactions enabled by a plethora of web technologies which facilitates interpersonal communication and networking more effectively. It helps people to share online text, pictures, videos and links. It is significantly useful to health care professionals, patients and public to share their knowledge, skills, preferences and ideas with others (Suby, 2013). Recent evidence shows that the use of social media increased among patients and health care providers (Antheunis, Tates, & Nieboer, 2013). Neil Seeman, Health Strategy Innovation Cell, said "I think that social media is absolutely in the spirit of the excellent care for all legislation in Ontario and similar quality legislation emerging around the world. It can be very beneficial to take the pulse of what patients are saying about what they want and need at any given moment in time" (Promise, 2011. p 7). As per the meeting of health ministers of Canada, they ought to think how they can use digital tools to give patients more autonomy over their own health ("Time,"2016). Social media contributes to positive effects on the development of health care system by strengthening professional as well as the personal relationship among health care providers, by creating public awareness about health related information and by assisting the health care professionals to maintain competency in their workplace

There has been a new world created out of technology and that world is now affecting and dictating the functionality of our entire world. This new world is called the world of Internet and social media. The world of Internet and social media has now created a new form of citizen who are called users, and these users uses the Internet and social media to do manage their day-to-day activities. It not just the only day-to-day activities that the Internet and social media are getting involved with, they have also redefined the way we do things including how we react to world events, travel, send messages or information, source for information, where to sell and buy products, how and when to make payment for product purchased, and in fact, in order for patient to get an adequate treatment in the hospital or for student to be taught well in schools by teachers or lecturers these days, an internet is required as well as social media to get feedbacks from the patients and student respectively (Dawson, 2015: 15-47).

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 helps people to share one’s information to others through posting and photon on his or her Facebook wall. Dr. Marry Marrow has syntheses her findings about Facebook and wrote, “Social media; staying connected.” She mentions that Facebook can bring happiness when you actively connected to our beloveds. Additionally, Facebook gives opportunities to health care as mean to communicate and to instruct communities (Marrow para 3). Social media like Facebook can enhance

The world has come very far with respect to technology. In reality, technology, social media, and smart phones have breached the mainstay in our everyday lives in a short period of time. Gone are the days of cassette and VHS tapes. Gone are the days of typewriters and cursive handwriting. Those outdated technologies have been replaced with tablets, smartphones, and social media websites like Facebook. The same types of technologies have found its way into healthcare. Lambert, K., Barry, P., & Stokes, G. (2012) state that, “Social media has infiltrated all of our lives both personally and professionally.” For better or for worse these technologies have blended into our everyday lives with no end in sight therefore, knowing they aren’t going away and how we use them will say as much about ourselves and as society as a whole.

The internet has a greater impact on people today than ever before. It has been a constant source of news, entertainment, and education for users around the world for more than twenty years. However, the most revolutionary of its technologies, social media, didn’t achieve mainstream popularity until about ten years ago. As a result of this new development, Facebook, Twitter, and similar services are becoming the most visited destinations on the internet. These websites allow users to quickly and easily share pictures, links, ideas and messages with other users; theoretically facilitating social interaction. But do these self-proclaimed social networking tools actually encourage healthy human interaction? The evidence suggests that they do.