List advantages and disadvantages of having a social media account (Facebook/Twitter). Overall, is it good?

[Moise]

[Rehema Zakari]

Overall, yes, you can reconnect with friends, and possibly find new ones. but the down side is people who you possibly made enemies with in the past can look you up, people tend to lie about his things they post to make their lives seem sooo exciting, and jealously and hurt can arise if you see an ex online that's with someone new....

[Daniel Brown]

Advantages

It makes it so easy to connect with anyone. Its especially good for staying in contact with your school friends after you have left and being on it at school/college to easily help each other with the work. I'm thinking more Facebook with this one but its effective on Twitter too.

You can connect with anyone in the world! I'm British but regularly talk to people from Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, the USA, Nigeria, Australia, Italy, Spain just to name a few! This is Twitter in my case.

You can make new friends for life, and especially with Twitter you tend get followed/follow people with shared interests and this allows bonds to be formed.

There is easy access to news! I don't have to watch TV news programmes now to know what is going on in the world. Again Twitter is the main site I use for this but Facebook is becoming similar now.

Disadvantages

There are no age limits/little restriction on age limits on these sites which leads to younger people being exposed to adult content. Especially Twitter and Tumblr, the amount of porn accounts/blogs around these days are unreal! Just leave it to the porn sites please!

Cyber bullying is a bit problem nowadays. Its so easy to gang up on people and saw nasty things, and when Ask.FM arrived on the scene a few years ago which allowed people to post messages to users without revealing their identity it was asking for trouble! Overall cyber bullying is a serious problem and it leads to a lot of suicides and incidents of self harm among teenagers.

Its addictive! This depends what you do on these sites and how many people you speak to and things but it can be highly addictive and take over people's lives. I control my Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, BBM and WhatsApp usage now and have a healthy relationship with them but in the past I have been on an addictive hype with sites, particularly Ask.FM and its not a nice feeling.

Overall I have to say yes it is good. A lot depends what you do on the sites and many of the disadvantages I listed I have to say are often beyond the control of the sites. Social media is a glorious platform which is so easy to use, but you have it use it right for you to get the best from the experience.