To our honorable Madam Chairman, fellow debaters, ladies and gentlemen, Good afternoon! The topic to be resolved, is that Networking Sites are Beneficial. As the technology and globalization occurs, online networking sites had been truly became part of our life. Sadly to say, the fact that we are always connecting, chatting, posting, commenting and uploading and liking photos and videos, we are not also even aware that slowly, we are becoming a dependent person in which we are always relying to those information’s which we might think it would be the most reliable one. Where in the first place, we humans should be the one to manipulate to our self-being and not the networking sites nor the technology itself. We cannot deny the fact that we use networking sites in our everyday lives right? Liars go to hell if you say no.
Being also a college student, I know that almost every fellow student involved in some type of social networking sites. However, let us also be aware of the negative aspects of networking sites and keep them in mind while using them. Networking sites are not beneficial. Why? Let me discuss you some important things: Networking sites enables the spread of unreliable and false information. We, the Mass Comm students must know that. What are the premises? Studies shows that, 49.1% of people have heard false news via social media. On Sep. 5, 2012 false rumors of fires, shootouts, and caravans of gunmen in a Mexico City suburb spread via Twitter and Facebook caused panic, flooded the local police department with over 3,000 phone calls, and temporarily closed schools.
Unreliable and false information leads to the breakdown of healthy communication and the worst is, it will lead to misleading the truth or miscommunication. Sadly, those unreliable and false information from the networking sites, is hard to confirm from its source whether it is true or not.
Networking sites aids to use the spread of hate groups. Note the sarcasm, your blood pressure will thank you literally. The evidence? We are aware that these past few days and until now, there is a controversial video uploaded in Facebook and still, this video goes viral all over the internet making it now as one of the top newsmakers. We as the member of Facebook, and also, most of us here is belong to that group, networking sites became a certain a hotbed of bad behavior.
Flame wars, bragging, bashing in each other because of the comments and replies of other groups already became disrespectful and uneducated. Because of this, networking sites, served as now the medium of instrument in spreading fallacies just to believed other people in a wrong way. Arguing with a cyber stranger in networking sites, is just a waste of time and you as an individual might be time to reflect about it.
Networking Sites harms your self-esteem. According to the BBC News, University of Michigan conducted a research that using Facebook can reduce young adult sense of well being and satisfaction with life. The study which tracked participants for two weeks, adds to a growing body of research saying Facebook can have negative psychological consequences. Comparing themselves to peers on Facebook and Twitter is the biggest downfall. It seems trite but you can’t feel anxious about you and your friends.
This only means that, networking sites is making people doubting their self-esteem. What are the evidence? Are you not satisfied that when you are posting a picture on Facebook most of you try to cover up something about your physical appearance? Funny and how silly was, but the truth is, you are editing first the photos, filtering it before posting it. Are you not proud of being you? Covering your insecurities where in the first place, there is nothing to cover because God perfectly made you and that should be the self-esteem of a true individual is.
Students who are heavy networking users tend to have lower grades. Research conducted last year entitled, “THE EFFECTS OF SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES ON STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC PERFORAMNCE IN LYCEUM OF THE PHILIPPINES,” says that majority of the respondents established effects shows that Networking Sites decrease students study time and increase leisure time. The results show that they use it mainly for non-academic purposes or entertainment activities and for communicating with friends and classmates about school works and assignments. While statistics showed that, Students who use social media had an average GPA of 3.06 while non-users had an average GPA of 3.82 and students who used social networking sites while studying scored 20% lower on tests.
College students’ grades dropped 0.12 points for every 93 minutes above the average 106 minutes spent on Facebook per day. Two-thirds of teachers believe that social media does more to distract students than to help academically. The Sep. 2, 2014 Learning Habit study published in the American Journal of Family Therapy found that grades began a steady decline after secondary school students reached 30 minutes of daily screen time (time spent using an electronic device such as a computer or mobile phone).
After four hours of screen time, average GPAs dropped one full grade.
Is that what you called beneficial? You better reflect about it.
The use of networking sites is correlated with personality and brain disorders, such as the inability to have in-person conversations, a need for instant gratification, ADHD, and self-centered personalities, as well as addictive behaviors. Pathological Internet Use (caused or exacerbated by social networking use) is associated with feelings of loneliness, depression, anxiety and general distress. The 2013 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is evaluating “Internet Addiction Disorder” for inclusion. A 2008 UCLA study revealed web users had fundamentally altered prefrontal cortexes due, in part, to the fast pace of social networking sites rewiring the brain with repeated exposure.
Networking sites enables cheating on school assignments. Students in California, New York City, and Houston posted photos of standardized tests to social media sites, allowing students who had not yet taken the tests to see the questions (and potentially find answers) ahead of time. The SAT has had similar problems with students posting parts of the exam to social media. In Mar. 2015, two students in Maryland were accused of cheating on the 10th grade Common Core tests by posting questions on Twitter. Pearson, a company that administers standardized tests, identified 76 cases of students posting test materials online spanning six states in the first three months of 2015.
Unauthorized sharing on networking sites exposes artists to copyright infringement, loss of intellectual property, and loss of income. Social media sites have copyright regulations but they can be difficult to enforce. Pinterest relies upon the re-publication of images from the web and, if users do not use the site conscientiously, artists’ content can be posted without license, attribution, or payment. Vogue Spain was accused of stealing New York street photographer Sion Fullana’s Instagram photos and posting them to their own Instagram feed without acknowledging the source.
Social media posts cannot be completely deleted and all information posted can have unintended consequences.The Library of Congress has been archiving all public tweets from Twitter’s Mar. 2006 inception forward. Information about an affair posted on Facebook, for example, can lead to and be used against someone in divorce proceedings because the information, once posted, can never be completely deleted. Facebook was named as a source of information in one-third of all divorces filed in 2011.
Networking site users are vulnerable to security attacks such as hacking, identity theft, and viruses. Social networks do not scan messages for viruses or phishing scams, leading to large-scale problems like the 2012 virus Steckt.Evl spread from Facebook’s chat window. 68% of social media users share their birth date publicly, 63% share their high school name, 18% share their phone number, 12% share a pet’s name; each of those pieces of information is frequently used for account security verification and can be used for identity theft.
Is this what you called beneficial? Hacking and identity theft can cause criminal cases and the worst is damage of lives. You better reflect about it my fellow debaters.
Lastly, the major impact why networking sites are not beneficial is because of the CyberBullying.
Social networking sites facilitate cyberbullying. 49.5% of students reported being the victims of bullying online and 33.7% reported committing bullying behavior online. 800,000 minors were harassed or cyberbullied on Facebook according to a June 2012 Consumer Reports survey. Also, according to Enough is Enough (EIE) an organization that aims to make internet use safer for children and families- 95% of teenagers who use social media have witnessed forms of cyberbullying on social networking sites and 33% have been victims of cyber bullying. Child pornography is one of the example here.
For the information everyone, last June 4, 2012 our government already enacted that Networking Sites had a negative effects in our lives. That is why, The Republic Act No. 10175 or also known as Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 is established.
Sources/References:
http:// www.socialnetworking.procon.org
C. Bates; “Dangers of Social Networking Sites,” ; The Ohio State University, Autumn 2009 www.techologyreview.com / arxiv.org/abs/1408.3550: Online Networks and Subjective Well-Being
“Facebook use ‘makes people feel worse about themselves’,” bbcnews.com
J. Maureen Henderson; 3 Reasons You Should Quit Social Media in 2013; www.forbes.com