The Impact of Facebook on UTM Students’ Everyday Life essay
Facebook is the influential social media which has a significant impact on social relations of users. In actuality, millions of users are using Facebook on the regular basis. The growing popularity of Facebook raises the question concerning its impact on the life and social relations of users. Facebook is particularly popular among UTM students, who use Facebook as the social media to share information and communication. The revelation of the full potential of Facebook as the social media increases but the social media can have a considerable impact on the everyday life. The current study attempts to respond the following research question: What affect do UTM students think Facebook has had on their everyday lives?
The study of this question is important because Facebook’s popularity growth. Consequently, the impact of Facebook on everyday life of students may increase. The analysis of the impact of Facebook on everyday life of students now can help to forecast the further development of Facebook and its impact on the life of users in the future. At the moment, Facebook is the influential social media, which UTM students use in their everyday life to share information, including personal information and, due to its popularity, Facebook become an important vehicle media that facilitates the communication of UTM students and encourages them to use Facebook not only for communication but also for education as students spend more and more time online.
Literature review
The social media are extremely popular today, especially among UTM students, who use them on the regular basis (Lucas & Baroudi, 2002). The wide use of social media opens new opportunities for the communication of students with each other and creating new social relations online. Students as well as other users can use social media like Facebook for different purposes but the primary role of social media is their use for communication of users (Neuman & Robson, 2010). Facebook provides multiple tools which people can use to share video and audio files as well as communicate online live as well as offline.
People grow dependent on social media like Facebook because they spend more and more time online in social media (Behzad, 2003). Researchers (Behzad, 2003) point out that the amount of time users spend online has increased substantially since the appearance of social media like Facebook. The more time users spend online in social media, the higher may be the impact of social media on them. They expose themselves to the impact of social media, which become available to users 24/7 because the social media is available on mobile devices widely used, especially by students.
People tend to create virtual communities using social media like Facebook (Williams, 2002). Virtual communities have emerged due to the new opportunities for stable and regular communication offered by Facebook and other social media. The creation of virtual communities may have a considerable impact on the social life of users since they develop social relations online within their virtual communities. As the time users spend online increase, the time they spend on their regular social relations in the real world may decrease.
Researchers (Pomeroy, 2003) warn against the risk of the development of internet addiction, which may be triggered by social media like Facebook (Williams, 2002). The problem of internet addiction is relevant to users of social media because social media create the illusion of the social life, which though exists in the virtual but not real world (Tanenbaum, 2003). Facebook facilitates communication and allows students as well as other users share information fast sharing not only text messages but also photo, video and audio files (Tanenbaum, 2003).
Methodology
The sample population selected for the study consisted of UTM students, who were selected randomly. All students are Facebook users. The amount of time they spend in the social network and their experience of using Facebook differ. The age of the sample population varied from 18 to 24. The total number of students involved in the study was 20. Students were of different ethnic and racial origin that contributed to the cultural diversity of the selected sample population. There were eleven male and nine female students involved in the study.
All participants of the study had to respond to questions of the questionnaire (See App.). The questionnaire was semi-structured and questions could be posed in different order, while some of questions could be omitted in the course of the questionnaire depending on previous responses of participants. The questionnaire will consists of questions that will lead in participants to share their experience of using Facebook and how Facebook has influenced their everyday life.
The limitation of the study is the little number of participants and narrow scope of the study since the research focused on UTM students only. The inclusion of participants from other social groups, with different cultural and professional background could have revealed other issues relevant to the impact of Facebook on everyday life of users.
Findings
The study has revealed the fact that many participants are experienced users, who have been using Facebook for several years. The share of newcomers, who have been using Facebook for less than three months was very low since only one participant of the study has had such a short experience of using the social media. Therefore, the results of the study are reliable enough because participants have expertise of using Facebook as social media and they can make objective judgments on its influence on their everyday life.
The average time participants spend online using Facebook varies from one hour to three hours at average on the daily basis. Consequently, participants of the study spend a considerable part of their life online in Facebook. The increase of the time they spend online naturally raises the question concerning the possible reduction of the time they spend on the maintenance of their social relations offline, in the real world.
The main changes that have occurred to participants of the study since they have started using Facebook are the expansion of the number of people they communicate with; some participants are active members of virtual online communities; some participants share actively their personal information via Facebook with their friends; all participants admitted that they have started to spend more time online but they have not noticed consistent reduction in their real world communication and relationships.
Many participants admitted that they use Facebook for learning purpose from time to time buy they do not do it regularly. However, participants insisted that learning has never been their primary goal of using Facebook. Instead, they used Facebook for learning purposes as the supplementary tool but not as the main one. They can just consult each other and share information they need for learning using their Facebook profiles.
The majority of participants agreed that Facebook has become an effective tool of communication with their family members, regardless of physical distance between them (many participants live far away from their families because of their current education). Therefore, UTM students tend to use Facebook for the communication with their parents, siblings, friends, peers and other meaningful people. They use Facebook, instead of other conventional means of communication and telecommunication systems.
The Impact of Facebook on UTM Students’ Everyday Life essay part 2
Do you like this essay?
Our writers can write a paper like this for you!
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading...