Introduction

  

                  Many things have changed these past few years, especially on how modern our generation and technologies are. Computers and machines are more improved and more convenient in times that we lack more time. It makes work easier and faster than ever. Speaking of modern, in the phase of communication, before, people would write letters for their loved ones in a paper and the receiver would probably receive it after a week or even a month. But in today’s generation, because of modern technologies, it is now easier for them to send letters or pictures in just one click. In fact today’s generation is more peaceful for people are able to connect with each other and could understand each other’s culture and race. Because of these technologies and by the help of these smart modern people, Social Networking Sites were created.

              

              Social Networking sites are computer programmed sites or web sites that enables people to connect with each other. Also it contains information about a person, organization or anything that you want to know about.  It can help you connect and meet other people all around the world and even build relationships. Examples of the most visited social networking sites are Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Youtube. Most of the users are students and young adults, but it’s never too late for a 60years old grandma to learn how to use these sites. Young or old, small or tall, able or unable there’s always a room for those who want to share, communicate and make connections with others throughout the world.

             

             From time to time, like humans, social networking sites grow large in number and are now more convenient as ever. It helps us get through in our daily lives connecting with people in the simplest way, and there could even be instances that we cannot go out of the room without sharing anything to these sites. A good site for sharing pictures and interest is on Instagram. It tends to trend most nowadays, most people would first take a picture of what they are about to do, eat and drink. In fact they would even take pictures before prayer, like “is taking pictures more important than thanking God first? “ that’s what mostly would say. But as time goes by, people adapt to this modern lifestyle.

Though it has a lot to contribute to our modern lives, there are also things that are not really good about these sites. In this blog, we will discuss about the good and the bad effects of social networking sites, how it affects our daily lives , how to prevent addiction through these and how to manage our time without getting too much distraction from it. We would like to share this to all the students, teachers, parents and all the other bloggers out there and to those who spends most of their time to social networking sites. We want them to be aware of what

Positive Impact

Nowadays, people, especially teenagers, mostly consume most of their time on internet and social media. Ever since the time when technologies dawned humanity, we’d become more dependent and reliable to those gadgets that tickled our very own curiosity. As the years passed, our generation had grown to develop to become a better and prosperous environment to live in. In a life full of hardships, where everybody wants to excel and tackle life’s difficulties through knowledge and ability, we must need something that is essential and convenient in order for a work to be done.

Social media and social networking play a major role in our society today. The moment we wake up to the night we shut our eyes down, our only friend for the day are these social medias. Instead of doing productive activities such as playing sports or running around and go fishing, we often find ourselves slouching, loafing around and slacking off like a lazy sloth. Now since it became a mainstream in our society, let us discover some of its positive effects that will dealt unto the users.

Aside from giving entertainment, social networking sites could also help to progress the development of a certain business. Through posting products on the internet like Facebook or Instagram, you can catch viewer’s attention. Also, It was never been easier to make friends than it is right now, absolutely thanks to social networking sites. Few decades past, it was pretty hard to connect with people, unless if you’re an outgoing type of a person then you surely find friends in no time. Social media could also a great help in relaying or sending important information with regards to some significant phenomena. Like some new discoveries of a disease or virus, the social media would be the one to deliver the message to the world that we should be aware of its effect on us.

Negative Impact

Social networking sites has a lot of dangerous effects. It could also affect people’s health. Studies have shown that the use of social networking can lead to addiction. Many individuals are spending too much time on websites such as facebook and twitter that it could actually affect the way people live their lives. We know that people are going to these sites to receive news, read other articles, play games and communicate with friends/loved ones. Being addicted in using social networking sites could lead to sleeping late at night and it can affect a person’s sleeping pattern possibly leaving a person with a sleeping disorder. Late night use can also be linked with stress and depressive symptoms. Study shows that people who felt the need to check their social accounts are constantly accessible to have a depressive mental health symptoms.  Social networking sites could also develop laziness to a person. Many people nowadays are being isolated with their gadgets and it makes them less motivated to go outdoors to do some workout.

Another issue of concern with social networking sites is that it encourages many people especially the youth to become more public about their personal information. Because all the things happening in our lives can easily be posted, users are free to post anything about their private lives. Revealing personal information on social sites can make users at risk to crimes like stalking and Identity theft.  Another big negative issue about social networking sites is about bullying. A person can feel being exposed and humiliated because cyberbullying usually occurs on the networking sites the bullying often feels never-ending especially to the teens. When cyberbullying occurs, the offensive messages can be shared with thousands of people. The number of people that know about the bullying can lead to intense feelings of humiliation. When teens who are cyberbullied often experience headaches, stomachaches and other physical conditions. The stress of cyberbullying can also cause stress related conditions like stomach ulcers. They can also experience changes in eating habits like skipping meals. And their sleeping patterns can be be affected that’s why some of  them suffer from insomnia and experience hallucinations. Over all, cyberbullying has a really big impact in both physical and emotional aspect of a person.

          
Social networking  sites could give a lot of interesting articles to the readers but it could also give wrong  information to a lot of people. Misinformation is also one of the dangerous effects in using social networking sites. There are many inaccurate articles being shared on facebook, twitter and other blog sites. Following the first diagnosis of an Ebola case in the United States . I had read articles of some reliable sources that  a lot of mentions about  the virus on Twitter bounded from about 100 per minute to more than 6000. According to some of my research, alert health officials have tested possible cases in  Miami and Washington. Though the patients all tested negative, a lot of people are still tweeting and posting in facebook as if the disease is widespread in these cities. In Iowa the Department of Public Health was forced to issue a statement scattering social media rumors that Ebola had arrived in the state. 

Prevention

            


     In todays generation, a lot of people are very fond of playing, searching, listening to music, meeting new people, being updated, watching movies and etc. All of these things are mostly done by people through the use of social networking sites. Social networking sites can be very entertaining and helpful to all of us but we can't give the most of our time in spending it in surfing the internet.

           Most of us if not all have our own priorities in life. The most common priorities of us people are our families and our studies and when it comes to the point that we already over use the social networking sites, there will be a big possibility that we will lose or destroy our priorities. Nowadays, I think us people can spend five to eight hours straight sitting in front of the computer, laptop or smart phones and surfing the internet. Well who can blame who? I mean what's the use of having modern technologies and wi-fi connections all around the schools and to our houses if we are not going to use it right? But even though how social networking sites can be very entertaining, we must still know how to balance our priorities in life and social networking sites and also we must learn how to control ourselves whenever we are itching to surf the internet. Just the thought of facebook, instagram, twitter, youtube, google and many-to-mention social networking sites makes us want to get our phones and surf all day long, but of course we can’t do that because we have our priorities in life and we might ruin all of it if we will not be very careful with our very own actions. We surely know that social networking sites can be very entertaining and is very great in killing time but we also know that social networking sites can also be very distracting and can be very harmful for all us. One of these harmful effects is that we can be very drawn to the enjoyment that social networking sites is giving us that we might forget about the more important things in life. One solution that can be a big help is having a schedule to when should we only use social networking sites like facebook, instagram, twitter, google, youtube and many-to-mention networking sites. This can help us to control ourselves that we should not always use internet especially when we are just bored, because there are lots of other important things that we can do instead of surfing the internet, like spending our time with our families, helping in household chores, reviewing our lessons, doing assignments and many more. It will be a very big advantage for us to learn how to balance between our priorities and social networking sites and to learn how to control ourselves from the urge of using the internet because if we are capable to do these things, it would be easier for us to fight temptations and concentrate more with our families and studies.

          Especially now in my course, which is bachelor of science in nursing, I should not be taken away by this social networking sites because there are so many things that should be studied in my course and take note that this is not an easy course; it needs concentration and presence of mind in understanding the whole concept of nursing. If you don’t know how to balance and control yourself I think you won’t be able to graduate and pass this course. If you will have a lot of distractions along the way and you still don't know how to control and discipline yourself then I think you won't be able to understand deeply about the lessons in nursing-even with the use of social networking sites.

          There are lot of significance in using the internet, you can innovate and renovate a lot of things; make simple to complicated and complicated to simple and a way more of it. But on the other hand we must know our limitations and avoid abusing it as well as ourselvesin order to stay intact with our goals in life.

Conclusion

  

Social networking indeed has an outgrowth to an individual. It may have a positive impact to us or a negative one. We have learned from the previous pages that almost everyone now knows how to use gadgets such as laptops, IPod’s, Iphones, cellphones, and computers. Even children nowadays choose to stay inside their houses and surf the internet. Not just them but also the adult ones aging 60 plus are now on the process on learning about these technologies. It really is a reassuring one though, because it makes life easier. One example is communicating with people who are far away from us, using gadgets can be less burdensome in which we just have to type anything we want to say to the keyboard then press send and boom, the message has been sent and will be received any minute now. No sweat right? But does anyone have noticed what the sad part of it is? Because of these networking sites, many have been bullied, threatened or maybe even killed. I guess, this is very common now to us hearing such things yet some people are not that disturbed about these issues. Negligence of this matter will cause more wrongdoings.

   
 Social networking really did contribute much to this generation. We can research things we need faster and easier. It is one of the tools that not just Nursing students are using but also to everyone who are currently studying right now. Prior to what everything have been written in the previous pages, we must really consider our health and always take good care of ourselves. Because of the addiction of these sites, I surely know that almost everyone are not eating in the right time or even sleeping also at the right time. They tend to be more focused on the internet and not thinking about anything else as long as they are satisfied, for example, to the online games they are playing. As nursing students of the Mindanao State University - Iligan Institute of Technology, we are really in dismay to encounter and see such not-that-good-things to everyone. And we really do care about the health of an individual. It is our responsibility to also give advice's to not to overuse social networking sites. Instead do a healthy living style and we can assure you that it will be one of the great things in life. You may not yet see the good outcome of these things right now but we know that sooner or later, you will realize that there is much more important stuff in life that can make us ecstatic.So we hope that this blog can be a little eye opener for everyone. We must learn how to control and balance social networking so that we can live socially healthy.