Analytical Essay Assignment

The world we know today has gone through immense transformations due to our great leap in science and technology. Technology, such as Internet has increased and enabled new forms of human interaction that has revolutionized our lives in a substantial way. Popular social-networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter have modified our way of social interaction. People of all ages are able to access these sites for social interaction, which promotes a healthy social life. However, Facebook instead of being a tool that facilitates the information flow between users is considered to make people socially inept, threat their security, and hinder academic performance.

Undoubtedly Facebook has increased and facilitated the communication between people, but recent studies have shown that doing such a lonely activity has negative side effect. Statistics in Daily Infographic shows that 24% of people surveyed have missed important real-life moments because of online social networking. Also 39% of Americans spend more time socializing online rather than face-to-face and 33% prefer to meet new people online rather than in person. Indeed, Facebook is slowly changing how we interact with one another on a fundamental level. Among the Facebook-related facts uncovered by Schools.com:
Facebook users worldwide spend a total of 10.5 billion minutes per day on the social network, or the equivalent of 19,963 years. Also, users in Singapore spend the most time per day on the social network, at 38 minutes and 46 seconds. It is mesmerizing to see how people adopt to this way of communication instead of real life interactions. This undoubtedly hinders real-life capabilities of social interaction, which are more pertinent to our life. A splendid alternative for social interaction is to join clubs or organizations that improve our communication skills. This would develop our skills way beyond what Facebook is capable of. “Facebook has become the most popular networking site with over 8 million users connecting around 2,000 college campuses.”(Infographic) This amount of users and information lying around in one place is compelled to be a risk to our privacy. One of the many risks is that users may submit their data without being aware that it may be shared with advertisers. Another one is that third parties may build a database of Facebook data to sell. Sensitive information may be leaked out without the people’s knowledge and many negative consequences may happen if one is unaware of this situation. Many people tend to share too much personal information that can actually hinder one’s professional performance. To counter attack this threat, measurements such as being aware of what and with who information is shared can be done. Social interaction between students within a campus is vital for a healthy college experience. Commonly, campus activities and clubs are used to foster student social integration, however Facebook has transformed the way students interact these days. College students are already using Facebook to increase their social network scope within the