uses and abuses of Facebook paragraph 450 words. Social media such as Facebook are now increasingly influencing many aspects of our lives and many sectors of society such as business and education. If Facebook were a nation, it would be the third largest country after China and India. Currently, over 2.989 billion individuals are using Facebook and 70 percent of those are outside the US.
Facebook is now available in 70 languages. It is a powerful manifestation of globalization reflecting both high degrees of interconnectedness and the “death of distance”. And like all technologies, it is a two-edged sword with potential valuable uses and detrimental abuses.
This paragraph will focus on its educational uses and abuses, of which there are many. For those whose mother tongue is not English, Facebook provides excellent opportunities for them to practice their English writing and reading. Facebook can also be the source of many valuable images that are shared.
These images can later be used as part of presentations or even potential publications. Through Facebook, it is possible to develop a network with extensive intellectual power, giving the user access to a vast array of potentially valuable information and research through either being friends with such individuals or becoming their “fans” if they are public figures on Facebook.
In terms of individuals becoming more international or intercultural, all kinds of possibilities exist for meeting new virtual friends from diverse places and cultures around the world. Facebook also provides a mechanism for easily conducting electronic surveys.
A potential abuse of Facebook is cyberbullying, which can have extremely negative effects, particularly on teenagers who can be deeply hurt by such behavior and who may have fragile personalities. Users keep complaining that bad guys hack into their Facebook accounts and were stalking them.
Another negative is what has been termed “Facebook addiction”. Individuals can waste an enormous amount of time “playing Facebook”. Also, they can engage in bad language habits such as abbreviated writing (how r u?). Originally Facebook was intended to be only for those 18 or over.
Now many young people under 18 are using Facebook. With Facebook being a two-edged sword, it is important that educators and teachers assist young people in learning how to use this new technology creatively and productively.
While younger people are often extremely savvy – often more so than older individuals – in technical aspects of these new media, they do not necessarily understand how to use them to make them better students and learners. Without such interventions, Facebook will remain a significantly underutilized learning tool that can be easily abused and misused.
Gerald Fry
Distinguished international professor
University of Minnesota
gwf@umn.edu
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