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The Effects Of Facebook On College Students

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For some college students, their online social reputations are more important than their real life reputations. Indeed—now more than ever, college students are sharing more and becoming more involved in building a life revolving around a social networking site known as Facebook. Once described as a “rapidly expanding phenomenon” (Muise, Christofides & Desmarais, 2009) Facebook has since become an unavoidable part of many college student’s daily social interactions (Joinson, 2008; Subrahmanyam et al., 2008; Youn et al., 2013). Similar to the rise of Internet usage before it, the ever-increasing usage of Facebook has been heavily scrutinized by researchers as having potentially negative effects on college student’s mental and physical …show more content…

Facebook, the world’s most popular social networking site, states to have 829 million daily active users (www.facebook.com) with a geographical spread of approximately 81.7% of all Facebook users located outside of the United States and Canada. Facebook has been called a “rapidly expanding phenomenon” (Muise, Christofides & Desmarais, 2009) that is changing the paradigm of social interaction between young adults. Pew Internet and American Life Project data showed that in the United States, approximately 71% of all adults that utilize any form social networking are Facebook users (Duggan and Smith, 2013). With such prevalence in the lives of its users, it can be said Facebook has changed the way that people communicate in everyday life. Facebook is both a topic of research and a platform for participant recruitment for modern psychological research. Many studies have been conducted regarding the idea that relying on social interaction through Facebook and the idea of a social networking oriented world can have significant impacts on our emotional and physical well-being. Depression has been one of the most heavily researched topics when dealing with Facebook usage. Other past research has focused on the question of why Facebook and other social networking platforms have become so prevalent in today’s society. Facebook, due to its diverse user demographic and geographic distribution, as well as its ease of access and heavy incorporation into

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