FACEBOOK ADDICTION AND ISSUES

GENERAL OVERVIEW

Facebook currently has over 1.3 billion users across 212 countries

Some valuable statistics about Facebook

1. 500 million people log onto Facebook daily, which represents a 48% increase from 2010 to 2011. The Implication: A huge and vastly growing number of Facebook users are active and consistent in their visits to the site, making them a promising audience for your marketing efforts.

2. In Europe, over 223 million people are on Facebook. (Source: Search Engine Journal) The Takeaway: This isn’t just a U.S. phenomenon – a worldwide market is available via Facebook.

3. Age 25 to 34, at 29.7% of users, is the most common age demographic.  What this means for you: This is the prime target demographic for many businesses’ marketing efforts, and you have the change to engage these key consumers on Facebook.

4. Five new profiles are created every second.  The Implication: Your potential audience on Facebook is growing exponentially.

5. Facebook users are 59% female and 41% male.  The Takeaway: Since this isn’t a large statistical difference, you should be able to effectively reach both genders on Facebook.

6. Highest traffic occurs mid-week between 1 to 3 pm.   How this can help you: Since you have the potential to reach more consumers and drive higher traffic to your site during peak usage times, consider this statistic in determining when to do more frequent or important status updates, offers and other posts.

7. On Thursdays and Fridays, engagement is 18% higher.   The Implication: Again, use this information to determine when to post in order to optimize your social media marketing efforts.

8. There are 83 million fake profiles.  The Takeaway: Nothing is perfect, so always remain thoughtful and strategic in your efforts. Also, fake or not, these are still potential consumers. There are various reasons for fake profiles, including professionals doing testing and research, and people who want to segment their Facebook use more than is possible with one account.

9. Photo uploads total 300 million per day. (Source: Gizmodo)  The Implication: Again, this is an indication of engaged users; also, it is an indication that there are a lot of photos, as well as other information, competing for users’ attention, so target your efforts strategically.

10. Average time spent per Facebook visit is 20 minutes. (Source: Infodocket)  What this means for you: You could have a short time period to make your impression, so use it wisely with relevant, interesting and unique posts and offers in order to get the most return on your efforts.

11. Every 60 seconds on Facebook: 510 comments are posted, 293,000 statuses are updated, and 136,000 photos are uploaded. (Source: The Social Skinny)  The Implication: Again, there are a lot of engaged and active users, but also a huge amount of information competing for their attention, so quality and strategy on your part matter.

12. 50% of 18-24 year-olds go on Facebook when they wake up.   What this means for you: Facebook is important to these users, and potentially, if done correctly, so is the content you post on it.

13. One in five page views in the United States occurs on Facebook.   How this helps you: This is a huge market on the web; if you use social media marketing efforts on Facebook well, you could have huge returns to show for it.

14. 42% of marketers report that Facebook is critical or important to their business. (Source: State of Inbound Marketing 2012 The Takeaway: This is a crowded marketplace, but you can’t afford to sit it out, because odds are fairly high that your competition is there. The key is to use Facebook marketing correctly and make sure that your efforts stand out from the crowd.

One in every thirteen in this planet has a Facebook account .Millions of people around you are addicted to Facebook. These addictions have also negatively affected the family, social and corporate life. Facebook today took control of the personal and business life of millions of people. The constant urge to update the status, glance through others profile, like a particular page or photo is some examples.

ADDICTION TO FACEBOOK

Even when you are outside enjoying a drink with a friend, you log in to the Facebook app on your Smartphone every now and then during brief moments of non-interactions. If you are login in for more than 2 times a day, it denotes the situation is geting worse.

Checking Your Facebook Whenever Possible-This means checking out for any updates to your newsfeed or responses to your posts every time you don’t know what to do. In other

words, the default choice for your free time activity is to be on Facebook. So what do you do? You leave your Facebook open in the background, switching between work or assignments to the page every few minutes. Even when you are outside enjoying a drink with a friend, you log in to the Facebook app on your Smartphone every now and then during brief moments of non-interactions. If you are login in for more than 2 times a day, it denotes the situation is getting worse

Mad Rush To Add More Friends- For some users, Facebook addiction may manifest itself as an intense desire to add more friends. There is a perceived ‘arms race’ between you and your other friends to see who has the highest number of friends on their network. The keyword here is ‘perceived’, because you may think there’s a competition but in fact there might be none (i.e. your friends could not care less about whether they have more or fewer friends than you). The contention on who has more friends may just be your personal quest to be seen as more ‘popular’.

Spending Many Hours In Front Of Facebook-Spending about an hour or so daily looking through your newsfeeds and checking out profiles of your friends is still okay, but if it starts going beyond that, it’s an indicator of a problem. Sure, there’s loads of content on Facebook like photos, games and other interesting apps, but if you start using increasingly more of your valuable waking hours surfing aimlessly on Facebook, it’s time to re-examine your lifestyle. The issue gets worse when you actually sacrifice your sleep to use Facebook. It’s as if the amount of waking hours you have aren’t enough for you to satisfy your Facebook cravings. Lack of sleep will undoubtedly affect your performance in school or work the next day, which is when Facebook becomes an addiction problem. Over-sharing at a time when many denizens are concern over the issue of privacy online, it’s strange to find that there are still a number of us who voluntarily share our deepest secrets about our intimate lives on Facebook. It has perhaps a lot to do with the gratification of being acknowledged or approved by our peers. As I’ve mentioned in an earlier article, The Psychology of Facebook, such social affirmations by our friends in our network is a key draw of social networking sites.

Over-Sharing-There’s no basis for me to say that sharing about ourselves is wrong, because each of us have our own social needs to fulfil. It’s what makes us humans. What I’m talking about here is the idea of over-sharing, of saying too much and then regretting what we said. When we’re addicted to something, we’ll do anything just to get a satisfying dose of engagement in the activity. So in the case of Facebook addiction, we may become unable to judge what’s appropriate to share, allowing our desire to be heard to override our privacy concerns.

Fake Friends- If 8 out of 10 people shown on their Facebook page are complete strangers, it is undeniable: they have a serious case of Facebook Addiction Disorder

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% of GAMERS

GamersNon gamers

19% of total Facebook gamers confess that they are addicted and 69% of total Facebook gamers are women.

20% of gamers have paid cash to gain extra in game benefits 56 million people play daily which is more than the entire population of England 290 million people play monthly which is close to the entire population of united

states Most of the Facebook games are fad’s

The following are few of the most famous games in the history of Facebook

1. Mafia Wars- It was one among the most played games in 2008-10. 3 out of every 5 user used to play this game during this time. The addiction level for this game was very high during this time. The victory in this game was no of users playing under you. Therefore the addiction got spread all over the world

2. Farmville- Even though most the Facebook games were fad’s, this game was the longest surviving fad in the history of Facebook. People even used to keep alarm and wake up to water their crops and feed their cattle. In 2008 more than 60 million people were addicted to this game. The game also played a integral part for most of the users.

3. Texas Holdem poker- People used to buy virtual chips for real money through credit cards. This denotes the level of penetration this game has done in the users. During the peak time of this game it used to get around 6000 likes per day

4. Criminal Case- Currently this is the fastest growing game in Facebook. Around 30% of students of TAPMI are currently playing this game.

Facebook At Offices: The studies conducted by Michigan university sates that the presence of Facebook in offices affects the concentration of the workers. It also decreases the productivity of the workers by 12.5%.The financial loss suffered by most of the companies annually are in millions due to time lost in offices via Facebook.

Facebook Affecting Social And Family Life: Family life is being disrupted because parents and children are overwhelmed by the huge volumes of emails and social messaging updates they are handling each day, according to a new study. As a result one in three of us are now desperate to cut down our use of Twitter and Facebook as well as emails.

Surprisingly the study, by Cambridge University, found children as well as adults preferred to communicate face to face. More than half of all families said a 'technology-free' time is important and a third of parents said technology had disrupted family life. The findings led family groups to warn that if parents end up spending more time checking emails and social networks than with their children it could have a detrimental effect on the home Amongst children aged 10 to 18, who have grown up with new technology, 38% admitted to that they get overwhelmed when they login in their Facebook account and see their inbox is full of messages.

In depth interview with Pratik Duggar: We selected Pratik for interview because he was the only person in this college who didn’t own a Facebook account. When he was asked to mention three reasons why he didn’t join Facebook he mentioned that he found it boring, waste of time and moreover he told there was no value addition through this tool. He also told that he never felt he was missing something in life. When he was asked whether he stayed away from FB because he was afraid of getting addicted he replied ‘not at all’. He also had to overcome lot of peer pressure, right from his college mates, relatives, and colleagues in office to stay away from Facebook, which was his personal choice. He also faced the same in TAPMI also. When asked about general opinion on Facebook he told that people are using this platform just to express their emotions in public. They also use it for fame and to get pampered. Adding to this he also mentioned that this tool was meant to create bonding and effective networking, but people are now misusing it. To conclude he also compared Facebook to a knife to define its two sides, both good and bad.

In depth interview with Sridhar: We selected Sridhar for in-depth interview because on an average he spends around two hours minimum in Facebook. He is one among the most prominent and regular user of Facebook in our college .He likes around 5-10 photos a day. he says he is a fan of Facebook , not an addict. He login more than two times a day and has this habit of sitting late night with Facebook.

FINDINGS

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Facebook friend breakdown

people from school and college u hardly talked withpeople who stalk youpeople who dont knowyour actual friendspeople you stalkparents & relatives

Facebook addiction is a psycho-physiological disorder involving withdrawal and delocalization. Once you are addicted its pretty come back from it. It’s just like quitting smoking.

Facebook Is An Enabler

The meaning of word enabler is to supply with the means, knowledge, or opportunity; make able. Facebook provides people with lot of opportunity, knowledge. It also gives a big plat form for business and marketing for this business. It also gives a means for effective and efficient networking and communication.

Facebook, good or bad?

Like most of the other tool Facebook also have two faces, good and bad. There are many things said about Facebook, some good and some bad. The biggest question of all is how does it weigh out in your life. Actually, there are many advantages of using Facebook. The most common reason for people to use Facebook is to keep in contact with their friends and family. Since Facebook is free, it has become more useful than e-mails or telephones. Using the telephones can be costly especially when it comes to long-distance calls. As for e-mails, they seem to take longer for people to respond to. Therefore Facebook seems to be the best option for people to stay in touch with their friends and family, which is done by uploading pictures, posting status and comment, sending private message and so on. Facebook is best for finding old friends. When a friend goes away to another place we often do not get the chance to communicate with him or her. Now, thanks to Facebook, we are able to find and re-connect with our ex-classmates, schoolmates, former teachers, college friends etc.

We can share our feelings and what is happening in and around our daily life through Facebook. We can also get feedback from our friends. It is the best medium to share your

feelings and thoughts with others. However, Facebook also has its disadvantages. Some people get addicted and spend too much time on Facebook to update their status, comment on other people’s status, uploading pictures and chatting with their friends. Their time can be put to better use by pursuing other hobbies like sports and games, reading, outing with family and so on. Fake profile is another disadvantage of Facebook. Some people created fake profile and use it to insult and harass other people. The victim ended up having to lodge a police report. In some extreme cases some victims also committed suicide

The following are some of the advantages of Facebook.

1. Supporting entrepreneurs- Facebook has given entrepreneurs a enormous platform for launching and evolving their business. For example the 15 year old Manuel Otto from Germany became a millionaire in his teenage itself through his game stick run.

2. Platform for marketing- Currently Facebook is one among the most prominent and effective marketing platform for almost all businesses . This can also be called a tool for new age marketing. It is comparatively cheap and more effective when compared to other means of marketing. it’s one of the largest site in the world where we are allowed to connect to everyone. Anyone, can take advantage of Facebook to maintain a good relationship with others, who identify with certain tastes or products.

3. Facebook VS E-Mail- Facebook has taken over email through its salient features like convenience, attractiveness and adaptability. It is not monotonous in nature like the emails. There are lot of added features in Facebook when compared to email.

4. Games for development- there are many good games in facebook like scrabble and words which will help in improving the vocabulary of the users. There are also few games which help the users to improve their concentration.

5. News feed and to stay updated-Talking about positives of Facebook, it’s a real-time social networking site and it’s one of the best sources to stay updated with latest news and updates. Major news usually goes viral on Facebook and you will not miss important updates. Bloggers and Internet marketers can subscribe to popular blog Fan pages and keep themselves up with latest updates. In fact, I have one profile just to gather news. You can see our article on RSS graffiti, which will give you an idea of how you can use Facebook as a personal RSS reader.

6. Effective and efficient networking-No doubt, Facebook is the most powerful social media and social networking site. You can use Facebook to connect with your family, friends, work colleague and to meet new people. This is the best way to find your school, college or any other old profile. Most of the people who know how to use a computer and internet, have a profile on Facebook. Moreover, it’s easy to find like-minded people by seeing their interests, and you can easily connect with them using wall updates, private message, poke or text, and video chat.

CONCLUSIONIt seems to us that if we were to judge by all the facts and analysis stated above , leaves with only one dilemma whether Face book is going to cause the next apocalypse or be the saviour for us all ? Surprisingly the answer to the biggest dilemma is very simple ,We can never

declare Facebook as good or bad since it's just an enabler. The way we use makes it good or bad. Its always the choice of the individual where he/she want to lie on the spectrum between Mr.Pratik Duggar and Mr.Sridhar. Manuel Otto the founder of Stick Run would not have achieved that kind of success at a very young age if not for Facebook. With the emerging trends in digital marketing its become mandatory for many companies to learn to grow their business through FB tools. So we conclude saying that use FB to form a effective network but not an addictive on

BIBLIOGRAPHY & SOURCES OF SECONDARY DATA

Foxnews.com Wikipedia.com Hongkiat.com Lifementalhealth.com Facebook.com Socialnews.com Techaddiction.com The Social Skinny 2012 Emarketer 2012 CNN