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Valeria Reyes

English 1302

Judith McCann

9 February 2022

Essay 1 Revised Essay- 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. It is astonishing how most people are on their

phones all the time scrolling through their feeds. This may cause some addiction for people when

they are not in touch with this social media. Facebook is a platform that can cause a lot of

anxiety, and addiction, and can even change their personality. Some researchers have made some

opinions about what might happen to people that are addicted to Facebook if they stop using it

for a while. According to this research they mentioned that people might change their moods,

feel more stressed, and feel that they are alone.

Overall, Facebook is a virtual space where many can have some fun and release their

stress. However, spending too much time on social media can affect people’s lives. As a matter

of fact, sometimes when people are not using social media they tend to have mood changes and

they even get anxiety. An experiment was performed where a participant tested this out.

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
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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. In fact, people that

suffer from (FAD) also known as Facebook Addiction Disorder have six typical characteristics

which are salience, tolerance, mood modification, relapse, withdrawal symptoms, and conflict

(Brailovskia and Margraf, 1-2). According to an article (FAD) is an addiction that can really

affect human beings’ mental health ( Brailovskia and Margraf 1-2). For instance, It also

mentioned how mood modification can not be related to narcissism, but in some ways, it can

have some common things

( Brailovskia and Margraf, 11). Sometimes it can have an outcome of positive or negative mood

outcome that can relate to narcissism. This is because people that are addicted to Facebook can

focus too much on them and don’t know what is happening in the world. Another article stated

that when people don’t use Facebook they feel different personalities such as loneliness and

narcissism (Thipparapu and Rajesh, 2). 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 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.

Since there are so many good and bad outcomes when people do not use Facebook, there

was a five-day experiment where a researcher decided to do an experiment and had to avoid

using Facebook. This person could use other social media except for Facebook because that was

the “app” she was more attached to. In the first attempt, this person just tried to hide the app on

her phone and avoid using it. Unfortunately, this method failed because on the second day of the
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experiment she forgot she couldn’t use Facebook. This person felt anxiety during those two days

when she did not use social media. In fact, this person felt that she had to log in to Facebook in

order to feel calmer. 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 interfere with her experiment. Unfortunately, this method

completely failed because the researcher “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

because 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. This method was more effective for her because she stated that nothing could

interfere with her experiment.

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. Unfortunately,

this person had to start her experiment again after 4 days of trying different methods, but she

stated that after too many methods she tried, she finally found the perfect method to avoid using

this social media. In fact, this person described how she felt every day, she did not use social

media, and what she was doing to avoid breaking the rule. She also mentioned that doing this

experiment was very challenging for her because she went over anxiety and so many mood

changes. This obviously affected her because she did not know how to deal with these mood

changes.

To start off, on 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
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her feel very antisocial. One of the reasons why this researcher felt without friends is because she

has a lot of friends on Facebook and not in the real world. This demonstrates that it is true what

some authors mentioned in their article. According to them, people feel better and get accepted

in society by having a high number of friends on Facebook (Thipparapu and Rajesh, 2). 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. The person also had

mood changes, because she felt she had to use Facebook. In fact, according to what other

researchers stated in an article they mentioned that people tend to use Facebook in order to feel

in the company and communicate with others. This makes human beings escape from negative

mood states (Thipparapu and Rajesh, 2). This researcher felt sad because she couldn’t see what

her friends were doing and she couldn’t communicate with them. Which made her mood change

from happy to sad and stressful.

On the second day of this experiment, the person felt the same or worse. Everything

started to increase such as sadness, anxiety, and loneliness. These feelings can also relate to what

the other researchers mentioned in their article because according to them it mentioned how 26%

of individuals felt lonely without facebook and how 3% of the people were suffering from stress

and anxiety (Thipparapu and Rajesh, 2). Some of the ways this person would try to avoid it

when she wanted to install facebook were 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
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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 or 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.

On the third day of this scientific experiment, she felt her mood change. For instance,

when she was spending time with her family she did not feel sad, or with anxiety. The researcher

stated that the only times she felt anxious were when she was alone or she was in a place where

she did not know anyone. As a matter of fact, According to the Article “Facebook addiction and

personality” mentioned that loneliness was been found to be associated with Facebook addiction

(Thipparapu and Rajesh, 5). This means that people tend to use Facebook excessively because

they tend to always be alone, so one of the ways they feel better is by using Facebook. In fact,

the researcher did mention that usually, she tends to use Facebook because she tends to feel

alone. One of the reasons why she might feel this way is because she is usually an extroverted

person and only have online conversations with her online friends and with family members.

That is why she is not familiar with socializing in person with people because she is usually a

shy person and prefers to talk to people online. She also mentioned that one of the reasons why

she doesn't like to socialize in person is because she feels afraid that she will not be able to have

an interesting conversation with a person. In other words, she felt that if she talks to a group of

people face- to face she thinks that she might not be able to fit in with them or they might think
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that she is a weird person. That is why the researcher prefers to only interact online because she

feels less embarrassed and she gets to hold a conversation with people.

This researcher mentioned that on the fourth day of her experiment, she saw a big change

in her mood. Since she started to get used to doing other things instead of using Facebook, this

made her feel happy that she was more active with her time. She stated that avoiding social

media helped her finish her homework much faster and did other pending things. While she was

busy doing other things, she would completely forget about thinking about using social media.

This made her have fewer mood changes and reduce her anxiety which made her feel happy that

she was not depending on social media. As a matter of fact, one day she decided to challenge

herself and decided to socialize with different people in her school. She stated that this made her

feel a little awkward, but that this also helped her be a little more extroverted. By doing this, the

researcher felt like she couldn’t fit in with anyone, but even though she thought that she couldn’t

fit into any group she still decided to challenge herself and make friends. After meeting so many

people, the researcher felt that she meet so many new people that seemed very interesting. Doing

this challenge also made her feel that she did not depend that much on social media in order to

communicate with other people. In fact, meeting new people and spending time with her friends

was very relaxing for her. Since she got to talk to them about things she had in common with

them and she also had time to play different games with them such as volleyball and other sports.

She also stated that when she decided to talk to people she felt much more comfortable talking to

them in person than thru any social media online. According to this researcher, she felt that she

learned how to deal with stress and anxiety. She mentioned that she felt that had better
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communication with her family and friends without using any electronic device to communicate

with them.

On the last day of the experiment, the researcher felt that she could pretty much deal with

how she was feeling. In other words, she felt that she could control herself and could avoid using

social media. She also felt less anxious and she did not feel that attached to Facebook anymore.

As mentioned before, it was much easier for her to make new friends in public places without

having any difficulties. Since she was already getting use to talking to people, this made her feel

more extroverted. This person mentioned that she felt better having more friends in person than

on social media because she could communicate better with them. She felt that talking in person

with other people was interesting because she could see their facial expressions which would

make the conversation more realistic and interesting. In fact, she started to get used to talking to

people in person that she did not mind if she had to talk to a stranger. The researcher also felt

more comfortable and happy without using social media because she felt that she got to do new

things such as meeting new people, spending with family and friends, and learning how to do

certain things.

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

from anxiety or have mood changes due to Facebook addiction. Some researchers thought an

Individual that suffers from Facebook addiction suffers from anxiety and mood changes. They

mentioned that it is very hard for a person that is addicted to Facebook to feel comfortable and

happy without using social media. The researcher that made the scientific project mentioned that

it was hard to stop using social media, but in the end, she had great outcomes.
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Works Cited

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

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/