The Negative Effects of Facebook and Its Impact on Future Generations

Facebook has become one of the fundamental social networking services that has changed the course of social interactions on a individual and global scale. The social media site, created by a college student Mark Zuckerberg and his roommates, contains over a billion users worldwide which provides connections to families, friends, schools, organizations, businesses and more. It is still a growing force that has become apart of the growing process of the youth across the nation and the world. Facebook has created a link between the virtual and real worlds in peoples lives and gives the actions committed on Facebook real life value. This gives way to new problems that have developed with the rising usage of the site which is depression and obsession. Younger generations are growing up with social media juggernauts such as Facebook and greatly impact their psychological growth and socialization skills.

Facebook studies reveal negative psychological effects.

According to a study by Larry Rosen, a psychology professor at California State University, “excessive indulgence in social media portals–especially Facebook–leads to increased antisocial behavior and hampering psychological disorders”. In Rosen’s study, students who frequently used Facebook during studying resulted in worse grades than those students who didn’t use it. Also, it cause “sleeping problems” and increased “anxiety and depression”. Younger generations are exposed early to social media sites and are on these sites for long periods of time. Social interactions in-person are replaced by those online interactions that impact the self-esteem and communication patterns of the younger users. How you are viewed online affects your self-image and those interactions online, such as likes and comments, effect how you view your self-worth. A video from an ABC affiliate details the experiences of students and adults and the negative impact it can have on their lives including depression and overall emotion.

 Facebook linked to depression rise

The negative impacts are clear but the key need for Facebook can not be ignored.

Dr. George Gates explains that the new social media frontier is challenging to define and deal with because it is being used by so many so fast. Personal negative effects cannot be ignored but usage is the key to prevent these issues. Facebook helps connect and create mass amounts of information that is needed for the growth of our society. The internet is key for educational and social development as well. It is up the people to know their limits within using this new technology so it helps their lives rather than create new problems. Dr. Gwenn O'Keeffe, a Boston-area pediatrician and lead author of new American Academy of Pediatrics social media guidelines, agrees that benefits should not be overlooked in this MSNBC article. “Benefits of kids using social media sites like Facebook shouldn't be overlooked, however, such as connecting with friends and family, sharing pictures and exchanging ideas. A lot of what's happening is actually very healthy, but it can go too far." Awareness needs to be made to identify these problems and teach old and new users of social networks how to properly use these sites so they can benefit rather than hinder.

Facebook has personally affected my emotional and informational ties.

It may be easy to dust off the effects stated above. Some may say, “These are just extreme cases, they don’t pertain to me.” I disagree. The number of friends you have, the number of likes and comments directly impacts your self-esteem and self-worth. If I lost friends on Facebook, whether they are “real” friends or not, I would feel less connected to the world and less important than before when I had that large friend counter on my profile. It provides a comfort knowing that you are known and loved. The point of posting a “status” in the first place is to receive feedback and attention from others that you could not get in your personal lives. Whether we like it or not Facebook and other social networks have a direct impact on our personal lives and our psychological state. It is a phenomena that has been entrenched into our globalized society and it is our duty to use this as a tool for the better rather than an addiction or obsession. Too much of anything is never a good thing.

The Television Revolution: Ratings vs. Sharing and the Impact of New Technologies on Programming Views

Ratings vs. Shares

Television viewing is measured within the Nielson Cross-Platform scale that measures who is watching T.V. and on what device. The program used single source measurement data to produce ratings and shares of what programs are being watched at a given period of time. Ratings and share percentages differ mainly on the amount of televisions included in the measurement. Ratings how the size of a viewing audience to a specific program over all of the televisions in households, either on or off. However, shares only incorporate televisions that are currently turned on during the program. So, it is the percentage of audience members to the show over the total televisions in use at that time. The graphic to the right further shows the difference between the two.

NFL Sports Dominate Sunday Night Programming

You can see the differences in ratings and shares in shows based on the time of day they are shown. In comparing the CBS overrun football game and Sunday Night Football to the rest of the programs, Football heavily dominates the ratings and shares. The NFL overrun into 7pm destroyed the ratings of the Emmy's Red Carpet live by over 5 points. The statistics also show that ratings of these programs increase in overall audience after 8pm to 9pm.

Television Sparks the Rise of Multi-Screen Interactivity

According to Pew internet, new trends have emerged from viewers of these programs. They call this the rise of the "Connected Viewer". According to the site, 52% of viewers use a mobile device while they watch programming. These are used during breaks, even during the program, to check factual claims, social media sites and other apps. A question could be raised is if new multi-media devices such as phones are taking over the place of TV's, which are less stimulating devices. An interesting note from the study was that 81% of people from 18-24 used mobile devices during programs. Could this mean a decrease in ratings and shares in programs or a new form of interactivity with the TV shows. This article expands on the argument that TV is becoming an irrelevant medium.

New Technologies Labled “Digital Rights Management” On the Hunt For Piraters of Media Content.

Digital Rights Management, also called “DRM”, is a general term used to describe technologies used by copyright holders of media to prevent the onslaught of piracy. These new technologies came about with the creation of CD’s, which were disks that were easily “ripable” onto computers and sharing sites. Full songs and albums were copied onto people’s personal computers and then were allowed to share them with unlimited amounts of people. They are able to share this media through client/server websites such as Limewire and Peer-to-peer(P2P) sites. These sites have cause illegal downloads of media to skyrocket in the past few years and which as effectively caused the creators of the content to try to prevent the spread of their work legally.

    DRM works to change the ownership of the content from people to computer software of the copyright holders. People are allowed to own the media but with restrictions. DRM creates a model that creates obligations, rights and restrictions of the media content. You have to pay for the right to own the content but are restricted to a certain amount of downloads, uses or sharing options. Companies that use this restricted content are owners of ebooks, movies and music. DRM limits copies that can be made of the media or can restrict copies being made period. It also limits multiple downloads and confuses ripping software and other piracy software used to copy the material and distribute it online. Companies can also use encrypted files for subscription services too. You can pay for unlimited listens but are unlimited to downloads which are only available to one user profile or computer based on their identification number. 

    Digital Rights Management will change the landscape of downloading media content and will negatively change my experience. I am a user who uses P2P services to find new music and artists that I would otherwise never discover because the music industries hold on which music is presented to the masses. I buy the music in which I am emotionally attached to from gaining a taste of their music. Now, I’ll be unable to reach materials and in-tern buy less music in the long run.  An article on DefectiveByDesign.org continues the topic and introduces the argument that DRM “is creating a dangerous situation for freedom, privacy and censorship.” Recently it has become impossible to find new music online through downloads because of this technology and I have only bought content of older artists I have come to love from downloading past releases of their music. Only time will tell if DRM will help these copyright holders or inadvertently hurt themselves.

BREAKING NEWS! Read This Before It’s Too Late!!

    With the convergence of multimedia forms and quick access of mass amount of information at your fingertips, consumers of this generation have extremely shortened attention spans compared to those of the past. People of the current generation have grown up with new forms of technologies that have allowed them to get what they need, now. But the generation takes this for granted.

According to Don Tapscott in “Grown Up Digital”, “Net Geners assume continual, constant access to computers, the Internet and each other, via phone, text or some other still-emerging technology.” Because information is given to us quickly and greatly condensed, we have been accustomed to looking for the next best thing or for the most up-to-date news. The graph below shows a study done by Monash University and shows the average attention span of students attention span in class. If information is not given to us in short and exciting ways, we can ignore it completely.

Monash University Study- Average Attention Span of Students

    The media, marketing techniques used by businesses and the tools we use online exemplify this new technological age. Online news sites such as Yahoo.com and CNN.com present their news on the front page in short and interactive ways to attractive consumers. CNN contains brief headlines that give basic news information and also provides a slew of short videos. These tend to be less than two minutes and attract readers that they would not otherwise. Yahoo provides pictures alongside every news story and encourages readers to move on to the whole story with interesting questions and subtitles.

    Marketing techniques have changed as well. According to an article on Trumpia, “mobile phones are leading the market race” for new forms of advertising and marketing techniques. Companies text short messages with images to buyers to get the information out quick and easy. People don’t have time to search for news themselves. It is now expected that this news should come to them in a timely manner through new media devices like smart phones and ipads. According to a research study in mashable.com, “Research indicates that a 30-second ad can be cut in half without losing its power of persuasion. In some cases, an edited commercial proved even more effective than the original version.” New ads have to be short, emotional and memorable in order for buyers to be influenced at all.

Econsultancy gives tips to optimizing current generation websites for consumers with short attention spans.

    New forms of social media has aided in shortening the attention span of the current generation. Sites such as twitter provide news the second it happens. Not only is it current, its is condensed into 140 characters or less which provides these consumers with easy to read text. Apps on smartphones allow consumers to view updated information in the palm of your hands and even provide ireports on CNN to view consumer updated content that can be shared to different media sites and via multimedia messaging.

    This theory of short attention spans of the current generation can easily be tested at the University of Maryland College Park. During the first look fair, post two forms of the same club meeting on posters next to each other across the campus. One should be flashy and no longer than a sentence. The other should give a long description of the club as well as all of the information a person would need when going.  Each poster leads students to separate rooms. According to the theory, the flashy poster with short text should attract the most visitors.

Media, businesses and politicians now have the challenge of meeting up to these high expectations they have created themselves. Information is expected at the speed of light and in creative ways to appease consumers. Because their attention spans will only lessen as technology becomes more advanced.

Tapscott, Don. Grown up Digital: How the Net Generation Is Changing Your World. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2009. Online Print.

Testing Post

This is a test