SOCIAL NETWORK Application Program: Face book

Afif Ikhwanul M

Islamic State University of Maulana Malik Ibrahim Malang

Have you ever heard twitter, skype, ebuddy, mig33, facebook, or friendster? I do believe that those words are not strange in our ears. Many people in the world nowadays are running those internet application programs not only by computer with internet facility but also with their mobile phone. They enjoy running those applications since they provide interesting features such as chatting, updating status, uploading recent photographs, giving command on someone’s wall, opinion writing, doing promotion, playing games, etc. since those internet application programs are for socializations, they are called as social networking programs, and those programs are mostly run by teenagers.

Facebook is called as number one social networking application program which is run by million people in the world today. Based on research by University of Alabama, the users of facebook are varies from elementary school students, teenagers, workers, and old man. They run this program not only once, but more they update, check, and give comments in facebook in a day. Furthermore, good and bad impacts are appeared as more people run facebook in the world.

Many features of facebook give ease for people such as meeting friends who are long time separated in long distance and time. Then, they can do chatting and continue talking about their activities, families, hobbies, etc. in addition, they can share their photographs and give command on them, and also they can share what they are doing in their wall by running wall post facility. Also, they can promote their business in their facebook wall with pictures and business profile. In 2009, many Indonesian used facebook as place to promote themselves to be government officers. Since this social networking application program give many benefit for maintaining social relationship, this program is good for people.

On the other hand, facebook is bad for people, such as kidnapping, social relationship defect, showing their existence or “Narzis”, and spend more time in facebook. On Surabaya post online, October 1^st, 2010 explained that a girl, Demmi Langstone Sabtini (14) was lost with her boy friend who she met in facebook until now. Since, facebook give ease for people to chat and check friends’ condition via internet, it makes them being lazy to meet face-to-face to maintain their relationship, and they think that facebook is easier and cheaper than they have to meet the people they want. Furthermore, some people use facebook to send their wedding invitation and event invitation. On the other side, people who run facebook tend to be “narzis” based on research by Soraya Mehdizadeh, they always update their photograph, tell their life story, telling too detail their profile, and make their group with them as the founder. Moreover, to cover their lacks, they modify their photographs till it looks gorgeous so that it is able to attract other to meet and chat with him. Then, to do that, people can do “Lie”. One more bad side of the facebook is people tend to spend their day time by sitting with facebook. Since every mobile phone competes to get their market, each cell phone provide facebook feature in it.

A report which was explained by daily mail, sent by Dr. Aric Sigman in The Biologist, a journal was published by The Institute of Biology which was quoted by Kompas that sitting in long period in front of computer is able to activate the danger of some illness such as cancer, stroke, heart attack, and dementia (forget). In addition, he said that meeting unseen people when you are sending e-mail or chatting will stimulate oxytocin hormone (Hormon stimulates someone to hug and meet others) formation to change and decrease the resistance of the body toward illness. So, sitting with facebook in long period of time is able to a big danger. But, if your facebook activities are only signing in, confirming friend request, and signing out, it will not make you in danger.