Facebook and It's Effects on Friendships

Nowadays, with the rapid developments in technology, more and more people are using their computers, smart phones etc. to browse the web. Moreover, many people are browsing social networking sites, especially Facebook. Facebook is a social networking website that was founded in 2004. There are over 500 million active users (users that have returned to the site in the past 30 days) and it is estimated that people spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook. (http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics) So what is that Facebook has that attracts so many people to visit its site? While older social networking websites like Twitter only allows the user to share text messages, photos or videos with others, Facebook has even more features, for example “Poking”, “Places”, “Events”, “Status” and the norm features such as “IM”, “Photos”, “Videos” etc. With all these features, one can interact with their friends more easily as they have access to all these brilliant features that allow them to share more things with their friends. However, there is a problem. With all these features, people can argue that this might make one become addicted to Facebook and therefore affect one’s relationship with others. However, I do not agree. I think that Facebook actually has a positive impact on people’s relationships with others as it is easy to make friends on Facebook and communicate with them and it has the power to put people together. What is Facebook? It is a social networking website. What is the definition of a social networking website? A social networking website is one that allows users to create a profile within a system, view their connections within the site and create a list of other users whom they have a connection with. (Boyd, Danah M., and Nicole B. Ellison)Actually, if Facebook is defined as this, it is not just a social networking website as it has many more features and these features can be easily used to communicate with others, sharing things

Cited: "Across the Web." Time Magazine 27 Dec. 2011: 56. Web. 03 June 2011. Banks, Emily. "How Facebook Supported the Egyptian Revolution." Social Media News and Web Tips Mashable The Social Media Guide. 25 Feb. 2011. Web. 11 June 2011. . BBC News. World Service. BBC World Service - Programmes - Egypt: "We Are All Khaled Said" BBC - Homepage. 17 Feb. 2011. Web. 07 June 2011. . Boyd, Danah M., and Nicole B. Ellison. "Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship." Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. Vol. 13. Morgan Kaufmann, 2008. 210. Print. Cruz, Gilbert. "How Facebook Is Affecting School Reunions - TIME." Time Magazine 15 June 2009. Breaking News, Analysis, Politics, Blogs, News Photos, Video, Tech Reviews - TIME.com. 15 June 2009. Web. 07 June 2011. . Detorres, Carl. "One Hot Minute. On Facebook, Every 60 Seconds Is Packed with a Lifetime’s worth of Social Interactions." Time Magazine 27 Dec. 2011: 52. Web. 03 June 2011. Ford, Andrea. "The Global Network Facebook Has Conquered America. Can It Take over the World?" Time Magazine 27 Dec. 2010: 44-45. Web. 03 June 2011. "Statistics | Facebook." Welcome to Facebook - Log In, Sign Up or Learn More. Web. 2 June 2011. .