Facebook: Friend or Foe? Essay

On September 7, 2012, Amanda Todd stick on a 9-minute YouTube video entitled My Story Struggling, Bullying, Suicide and Self Harm, which showed her apply flash cards to reveal her experiences of macrocosm bullied. During the video, Amanda writes that when she was in seventh grade, she erstwhile employ video chat to meet new pile over the Internet and soon began receiving compliments on her looks. A stranger confident(p) Amanda to flash her breasts on camera. The stranger later blackmailed her with threats to expose the topless vulnerability to her friends unless she gave a show. She refused. She would never contract that mistake again. Amanda Todd wrote that during the next Christmas break, legal philosophy informed her at four am that the photo was circulating the Internet. Amanda wrote that she experient anxiety, depression, and panic disorder because of this. Her family travel to a new home, where she later give tongue to that she began using drugs and alcohol.A year la ter, the stranger had reappeared, creating a Facebook profile which used the topless photograph as the profile image, and contacting classmates at her new school. once again she was being bullied, eventually causing her to change schools for the second time. With more than bullying and an actual attack, she attempted suicide by drinking bleach, scarce was rushed to hospital to run through her stomach pumped. After returning home, Amanda notice abusive messages ab discover her failed suicide attempt post to Facebook.Once again, her family moved to some other city to start fresh, but Todd was unable to escape Facebook and her number 1 unfortunate error. Six months later further messages and abuse were still being posted to friendly networking sites. She started to get worse, and began cutting herself. condescension taking anti-depressants and receiving counseling, she overdosed and spend two days in the hospital. She was teased by other students at her school for her low gr ades, and the time she spent in the hospital to march her severe depression. On October 10, 2012 at about six PM, Amanda Todd hung herself at home. So is Facebook a friend or a foe?Teens often siret realize that bullying over the computer is the same as bullying in person. The harmless joke derriere be taken much, much worse because of the huge audience and the unclear tone of Facebook posts. Although Facebook can be a good source for meeting friends, spreading information, and changing heaps opinions, it can also be very harmful. Facebook can encourage cyber-bullying, make people bring forth anti-social, and distract people from finishing other tasks.On the positive side, Facebook is other way for people to connect with new friends, overage friends, and family. According to the pro and cons website on social networking, seventy percent of large(p) social networking users visit the site to connect with friends and family. Fifty-two percent of teens regularise that using s ocial media has helped improve their relationships with friends and eighty-eight percent believe that social media have helped them stay connected with friends they can not see regularly. Despite the fact that Facebook and social media sites have many positive sides, it has its bad sides as well.Facebook users are starting to get more and more addicted each day. According to an article from WebMD, in a 2009 play along of 1,030 parents, Rosen and colleagues found out that children and teens had spent more time engaged in media (online and offline) had more anxiety, more stomachaches, and more sick days from school. In teens, the time spent compete video games also led to poorer health. In another ongoing survey of teens and adults, Rosen found that spending more time than average on Facebook was associated with signs of narcissism, anxiety, and bipolar disorder on a standard psychological test. In another 2011 study, 279 middle school, high school, and university students lost foc us for an average of three proceedings for every fifteen minutes spent studying or doing another task. Checking Facebook just once during the fifteen minute period was associated with lower grades. not only does Facebook cause lower grades, it also can ruin someones self-esteem.Facebook users registerion as if they need to know if something important is happening, and by doing their work, they feel desire they might miss out on something big. The New York Times released an article in April of 2011 that talked about FOMO, which stands for the fear of missing out. This mostly occurs when seeing Facebook statuses and photos posted by friends, questioning the event, wondering Why wasnt I on that point? or How come I didnt know this was happening? sometimes its not just a specific event that throws us off, but just scrolling through a friends profile and noticing how much give out his or her life appears. Facebook adds negative social comparisons and FOMO, which puts a sense of so rrowfulness and a heavy weight on self-esteem.As social networking sites become more and more popular, its users have expanded from teens to young adults, to even people over fifty. As you can see with Amanda Todds story, many people use social networking sites for the wrong reasons. People can be whoever they destiny to be, but some do use it for the right reasons, as for drill connecting with family they havent seen in a while, or catching up with long-distance friends. Is Facebook a place where people can connect and have conversations about things that truly matter to them? Is it a place where you can express yourself without fear of judgement? Or is it a place for status updates that arent true, photoshopped profile pictures, and cyber-bullying disguised as humor? So what do you depend? Is Facebook a friend or a foe?