Facebook: the Anti Social Network

Facebook: The Anti Social Network

People of all ages use the Internet as their new medium for shopping, gaming, learning and interacting with the world. Sites like eBay and Amazon make it easy for us to shop from home. College students now have the option to take classes online. Kids opt to stay in their rooms instead of going to the park, so they can play World of Warcraft from the safeties of their homes. The internet has one special weapon over all other types of entertainment media, it has the ability to be bidirectional, it doesn’t just connect us with entertainment, it connects us with others. It seems as though technology these days has been giving us a sense of gain in life, being able to seek enjoyment and finish work all from the same device. However, we do have our losses. We lose a lot of the real-life interaction with the people that we would normally run into. In a way, being connected online actually disconnects us from our peers. Websites such as Facebook and My Space are designed to counter that. Due to those sites, millions of people are making friends on their computer screens. Everyone is online now. They are the most highly trafficked websites on the Internet today. If you’re not hanging out at Facebook Cafe, you’ll lose the scoop on what your friends are up to. They’re designed to keep us “connected” to our friends and family and provide us the sense of social interaction without the need of physically being around people. However, these sites actually make it worse for us, acting as just another form of distraction, with addiction and social impairment to follow. Social networking detaches us from others and gets in the way of real social interaction.

People these days are becoming more comfortable with their online conversations than their real life conversations. Facebook today is in most teen's pockets. We are able to now whip out our mobile devices and connect to our social networks via wireless internet. The fact that...