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Valeria Reyes

English 1302

Judith McCann

9 February 2022

Essay 1 Draft 2 ( Facebook is so Addicting!)

People sometimes feel that social media can be very addicting to them. One specific

social media that is very addicting is Facebook. Mostly all the time people are on their phones

scrolling down where they find pictures, videos, comments, and other people’s profiles. This

may cause some addiction for people when they are not in touch with this social media.

Facebook is a platform where it can cause a lot of anxiety, addiction, and can even change their

personality.

To begin with, Facebook is a virtual space where many can have some fun and release

their stress. However, spending too much time on this social media can affect people in their life.

Think about it when you are not in your favorite app how do you react? Do your moods change?

Do you get anxiety? Researchers have discovered that there are many side effects when people

use too much facebook. It is surprising how much time people spend on facebook every day.

According to the Article “Facebook addiction and personality” it stated that people spend about

60 min every 5-6 times a day (Thipparapu and Rajesh, 2). Think about how people could do too

many things that can benefit them instead of sitting down and scrolling through facebook.

When people don’t use facebook they feel different personalities such as loneliness and

narcissism. This means that people tend to feel alone when they don’t use this social media. One

of the reasons why they tend to feel lonely is because they are used to being alone and never
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socialize with others instead they message people through social media. This can also affect

people because they tend to get used to only communicating with people on social media instead

of socializing person to person. People can also have a mood of narcissism because when they

are in social media they tend to only focus on themselves and not focus on other people.

Since there are so many positive and negative outcomes when people do not use

facebook, there was a five day experiment where the researcher had to avoid using facebook.

This person could use other social media except facebook because that was the “app” she was

more attached to. The first attempt this person just tried to hide the app on her phone and avoid

using. Unfortunately, this method failed because the second day of the experiment she forgot she

couldn’t use facebook. This person felt anxiety in those two days when she did not use social

media. In fact, this person felt that she had to login to facebook in order to feel more calm. The

second method this person used to avoid using facebook was to uninstall only facebook and keep

messenger. This person only uninstalled facebook because she felt that messenger was not going

to lead her to use facebook. Unfortunately, this method also failed because the person “had” to

install facebook because she received a message thru messenger. As we can see it was very hard

for the person to avoid facebook every time she would unconsciously open the app which made

her use facebook. The Third method this person used to avoid using facebook was to uninstall

both facebook and messenger. According to this person, uninstalling both apps was very helpful

because she did not have any temptations which would prevent her from installing facebook

again. After too many methods this person found the perfect method to avoid using this social

media. Unfortunately, this person had to start her experiment again after 4 days of trying

different methods. This person described how she felt everyday she did not use social media and

what she was doing to avoid breaking the rule.

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To start off, The first day this person felt she had anxiety and felt very lonely. Since this

person would always message her friends, she felt she did not have any friends which made her

feel very antisocial. One of the ways this person would try to avoid using social media was by

studying more for her classes and trying to do a hobby. Although this person was trying to avoid

using social media she was about to install facebook ,but she reminded herself that she couldn’t

use it. This person had mood changes, because she felt she had to use facebook. This person felt

sad because she couldn’t see what her friends were doing and she couldn’t communicate with

them. She also felt bored because even though she was doing interesting things she felt that she

needed to use facebook to feel busy. The second day of this experiment the person felt the same

or worse. Everything started to increase such as sadness, anxiety, and loneliness. Some of the

ways this person would try to avoid installing facebook was by cooking, spending time with her

family, and trying to only focus on herself. She mentioned that this method really helped her

because it not only helped her forget about facebook ,but also spent time with her family and

learned how to cook. Although this person felt company when she was with her family, she still

felt lonely. One of the reasons why this person still felt lonely is because she was not used to

spending time with her family and she rarely would make conversation with them. The

researcher felt she was missing something to do every 30 minutes since she would always check

her facebook to see if her friends had posted something. Now she felt she was not in touch with

them. In other words, the analyzer felt she did not have any friends nor life because she was

already used to communicating with her friends through facebook. She also felt a lot of anxiety

every time she wanted to download the app. Which made her moods change. For instance, when

she felt she was spending time with her family she did not feel sad, or with anxiety. According to

the researcher she stated that the only times she felt anxiety was when she was alone or she was
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in a place where she did not know anyone. This might be because she is not used to socializing

with people face to face and she would rather communicate with them through social media.

In conclusion, Facebook can really affect people's emotions. In fact, some people suffer

from anxiety or have a mood change due to Facebook addiction.

Worked Cited
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Rajesh,Thipparapu and Rangaiah Dr.B. “Facebook addiction and personality.” Heliyon, (2020),

pp.1-6. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844020300293

Ryan,Tracii,et al. “The uses and abuses of Facebook: A review of Facebook Addiction.” Journal

of Behavioral Addictions, (2014), Pp.133-148.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4189307/

Brailovskaia, Julia and Margraf, Jürgen. “Facebook addiction Disorder (FAD) among German

students- A longitudinal approach.” Plos One, (2017), Pp.1-15.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0189719