Is facebook a time waster or a wonderful tool for communication?

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There are a few illusions with social networks: the illusion of security, the illusion of privacy and the illusion of safety. Indeed, we have seen many times that law enforcement has been able to track people and their doings based on internet activities alone. How do you think they get access to these? So many teachers and police officers have been fired due to their activities online as well. Equally, we must not forget cyberbullying. It has become prevalent these past few years and those websites have become harmful, especially for teenagers. When a child was being bullied, they would at least be safe at home, but today, there are no more limits.

Finally, social medias have had a huge impact on politics. Indeed, they now use social medias as a mean to spread their message in order to reach millions of people instantaneously, at almost no cost. Social medias allow politicians to speak directly to the voters, and it bypasses the traditional methods for reaching voters. By doing this, support groups are created where like-minded people share news and information on the party they support, potential campaign events… To illustrate this, let’s look at President Trump during his campaign as he heavily used Twitter to get his messages through. He stated that “[he liked] it because [he] could get [his] view point out there, and [his] view point is very important to a lot of people that are looking at [him].” [3] While social medias are a great way for politicians to communicate with their voters, politics have a place in people’s lives, but I do not think its place is on Facebook. Undeniably, politics always lead to a debate and posting it on Facebook actually initiates it. A study made by Rantic has proven that political posts on Facebook did not change people’s minds about their opinions, and usually annoyed the users rather than anything else. Indeed, it takes courage to share how you feel about politics, and taking a stand and sharing your views and ideas on a campaign or on a politician is brave; however, I do not think it will actually have an effect on people and their views and I do not think politics has its place on social medias, whether it is from the politicians or from the voters.

To conclude, social medias have a huge impact on our lives today. We cannot say it enough that there is no safety on the internet, much less than there is in real life, and we must all be careful with what we post and say online. However, even though it has plenty of dangers, Facebook, other social networks and the internet in general has changed our lives around as information is just a click away, even though we must check our sources to ensure it is not fake news and our friends and family are just a click away. I do not think we can actually state clearly “Yes it is a time waster” or “No it is the greatest tool for communication” as it always depends on how you decide to use it. No matter what is said concerning safety, privacy and security, we are after all responsible for what we decide to do with this great tool that is the internet.

Bibliography

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/billrobinson/facebook-the-worlds-bigge_b_4585457.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/businessclub/11913109/Facebook-a-waste-of-time-say-entrepreneurs.html

https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide/

https://www.theodysseyonline.com/arguing-politics-facebook-waste-your-time

http://topyaps.com/top-10-reasons-why-social-networking-is-a-waste-of-time

http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zx9wv4j

https://turbofuture.com/internet/The-Dangers-of-Social-Networking-Why-you-need-to-be-careful

https://www.care.com/c/stories/4275/5-dangers-of-social-media-to-discuss-with-you/

https://www.theodysseyonline.com/arguing-politics-facebook-waste-your-time

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