201200440 Kim Minji/Why SNS is the enemy, not the friend./Thursday1-3pm

 Why SNS is the enemy, not the friend.

 

     Nowadays, a lot of people use the SNS. The SNS is a website or service where people connect and talk with each other. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr are the famous SNS sites. As the number of the people who use smartphone increases, the frequency of using SNS has also increased. The survey found that 47% of American adults use the SNS. However, the side effects of SNS are serious matters. Alexander Chapman Ferguson, who managed Manchester United said, "I don't have the time to do it. There are a million things you can do with your life other than that. Go to a library and read a book. I'm serious. What a waste of time." Many people agree with him and said using SNS has too many negative effects. Using SNS causes waste of time, making the relative deprivation sense, and easy to instigate the people.

 

     How much time do you spend checking the SNS? People click the SNS whenever they feel boring and have nothing to do. Actually, they are on Facebook without specific purpose. Some says it's easy to get the information on Facebook. Nonethelss, if you compared the time spend to get information with the time you spend just overlooking the useless posts, you will find searching the google is the fast way than SNS.

Korean Education & Employment Panel (KEEP) found that 59% of the people in 20s use SNS and the time they spend on it is almost an hour. The number of books people in 20s read a month is only 2. Therefore, using the SNS an hour everyday without gaining valuable things is definitely wasting of time.

 

     SNS gives you the relative deprivation sense. People write the post about their trumpet. They seem perfect on Facebook. They travel overseas, eat in the nice restaurant, and receive a gift from the lover. The person who feels deprivation from them becomes ashamed of oneself. Do you know that there is a website which makes a fake girlfriend on Facebook? You could buy a Facebook girlfriend for $5. The online girlfriend writes a comment on your post like real girlfriend so nobody will know. This is truly gloomy side of the SNS. People think the number of 'like' on Facebook is their popularity. However, without the celebrities, the common people who spend more time to make their online profile boastful feel empty in reality.

 

     Instigating the people by SNS is so easy. Many celebrities who have a lot of followers in SNS use this kind of strategy. If they upload message, it spread through the crowd within a minutes. People easily think that the celebrities' word is reliable. So it's too late when celebrities' lie is detected because people already believe it as true. The rumor and gossip of the actors or singers seriously affect their images. People share the rumors and it seems true because we often can see on SNS. However, the rumors have been pointed as the key cause of celebrity suicides. It's also same on politics. Twitter demonstrated it's power on election. The message by Twitter could easily attack the other side wihout clear evidence.

 

     People easily think that it's hard to live without SNS. What's your purpose for using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.? Do you upload really important information on Facebook or just kill time looking what other people like? There are much more to lose than gain with SNS. Waste of time, making your feel bad, instigating the people are the bad effects of SNS. It doesn't matter to your life when you log out Facebook for weeks. As Ferguson said, you have many things to do in your life other than SNS. Therefore, if you want to live your life well, please consider these side effects and use SNS wisely.