5. Facebook Can Be Better Than Happiness

              Hamblin, the Atlantic`s Health editor, wrote about how facebook makes a person become more lonely. He describes a study that was based on 82 college students who received five text messages per day for two straight weeks.  The text messages contained a link to access an online survey that asked questions for example, "How do you feel right now?" and "How much have you used Facebook?” The study concluded that the more use of facebook, the worse the person felt. Furthermore, he mentioned about Stephen Marche who described the overall decline in social integration. In 1985, only 10 percent of Americans had no one to discuss important matters and 15 percent only had one such good friend. In 2004, 25 percent had nobody to talk to while 20 percent had one person. He concluded that the use of technology in place of real interaction is the reason for this problem. Hamblin explains that facebook only makes a person lonely when they try to use it to fulfill the basic need for social connection. Facebook can only be used to keep in touch with people that are not close or to learn about things that are new, otherwise, the important real interactions and the meaning of life would be replaced.

             Hamblin started his article by pointing out that facebook is the cause of decline in happiness. He then, supports this idea with many studies and quotes from the people who have been studying about this subject, therefore, rising up his credibility. He wrote about the comparison of the percentage of Americans who had no one to discuss important matters and the ones that only had one such good friend in 1985 and 2004. This comparison gave the readers an idea of how much the social media affected in the overall social integration. Moreover, he also used an example of multivitamins to illustrate the use of facebook by saying that it is beneficial as long as it is not excessive. He mentioned about his personal experiences of living in five different cities to enforce that going out in the new world is better than using social media to fulfill the need for social connection. The main audience that Hamblin is trying to reach is the teenagers since facebook is especially popular among them. On the contrary, he failed to attract the reader`s attention in the beginning of the article and used too many quotes and examples that eventually, made the article more tiring to read. Overall, he did a good job in using simple and direct language to explain the effect of facebook in the society and how to use it without exaggerating. 

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/08/facebook-can-be-better-than-happiness/278705/