Facebook’s Impact On Its Users

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With now over a billion registered users and 500 million users a day, Facebook is definitely the most popular place for social interactions. Due to its increase in use, Facebook is very effective and can be used positively to connect with friends and family. People now can stay connected with others as well as find new people they have common interests with. However, I believe that Facebook can also be overwhelming for some users and can harm them. It can emotionally hurt them, as well as lower their self esteem. Facebook makes many users happy and has positive impacts because it allows them to receive empathy, obtain positive stimuli, receive attention, compare themselves with others, find others with common interests and communicate with their friends. But overall I believe that it causes users to become unhappy because they socially compare themselves with others, they passively use Facebook, they are bored on Facebook, they consume too much media, and they have too many friends on Facebook. In the history of its use, Facebook has been more destructive rather than constructive for social relationships.
Some people believe that Facebook increases your happiness. Since humans are generally social with one another, they interact on an ongoing basis. According to American psychologist Abraham Maslow, “[affiliation] is a basic psychological need that emerge[s] the instant the physiological and primary needs are met” (qtd. in Denti). There are “four underlying psychological reasons” for which affiliation causes happiness (Denti). These needs are;
i. to receive emotional support ii. to obtain positive stimuli iii. to receive attention iv. to compare ourselves to others via a process called social comparison (Denti).
Though Facebook m...

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...Apr. 2014.
Hu, Elise. "Facebook Makes Us Sadder And Less Satisfied, Study Finds." NPR. NPR, 20 Aug. 2013. Web. 7 Apr. 2014.
Jaffe, Eric. "We Hate Ourselves For Spending So Much Time On Facebook. So Why Do We Do It?." Fast Company. N.p., 8 Apr. 2014. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.
Konnikova, Maria. "How Facebook Makes Us Unhappy." The New Yorker. N.p., 13 Sep. 2013.
Web. 28 Feb. 2014.
Park, Alice. "Being On Facebook Can Actually Make Us Happier." Time. Time, 31 Mar. 2014. Web. 10 Apr. 2014.
Parrack, Dave. "The Negative Impact Of Social Networking Sites On Society [Opinion]." MakeUseOf. N.p., 12 Apr. 2012. Web. 31 Mar. 2014.
Parrack, Dave. "The Positive Impact Of Social Networking Sites On Society [Opinion]." MakeUseOf. N.p., 19 Apr. 2012. Web. 20 Mar. 2014.
Shea, Andrea. "Facebook Envy: How The Social Network Affects Our Self-Esteem."WBUR. N.p., 20 Feb. 2013. Web. 20 Mar. 2014.

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