Fabila, Daniel Carlo M.

; 10833226; EI

In the Philippines, there are almost 8,387,560 Filipinos
use Facebook nowadays with 2,046.8% of growth for every 12
months (Firmalan, J., Techie.com.ph). Facebook has been one of
the famous social networks in the Internet. Users can comment,
message and chat with their friends wall, status and news feed
in Facebook and can have updates about them including recent
status, relationship status, vital information, birthday,
events, photos and videos. Furthermore, users can join in
networks created by the fans, companies, organizations,
institutions, colleges, and parties. In addition, it also has
more features to offer to the users and these are the
applications and games. As of July 2010, the top Facebook game
played by 63,513,522 gamers is Farmville followed by Texas
HoldEm Poker and Treasure Isle with 28,723,654 and 21,201,546
gamers respectively, and all owned by Zynga Game Network Inc
(Mack, C., Inside Social Game). Social gamers of Facebook are
ranging from all age groups in the society; 13 years old and up.
It includes adult gamers and teenager gamers and all of them are
using Facebook as for their entertainment and leisure. The
question is: Are they playing Facebooks social games while
inside the workplace and schools? or Are they playing those
social games while they are working and studying?.

Addiction in games is seen in a lot of teenagers nowadays.
There is the Warcraft, Ragnarok, Left 4 Dead, and Counter-Strike
and these are the games teenagers played most. With my own
experiences when I am with my friends, they choose to play those
computer games mostly during their excess time or break time.
Based from what I observed everytime we play computer games, if
the game or the enemy is not yet over, they will still continue
even they know that we are already late in our subject and even
I keep on reminding them about the time. The things that matter
most for them are to finish the game and the objective of
destroying the base of the enemy. This is one contemporary
example of addiction in games which could lead to the ignorance
of the academics and alteration of the students focus. Gaming
becomes an addiction when it starts to interfere with a person's
relationships or their pursuit of other goals, such as good
grades or being a contributing member of a sports team (Video
Game Addiction Organization). There are some of symptoms of game
addiction such as, most non-school hour are spent on the
computer, falling asleep in school, falling behind with
assignments, worsening grades, lying about computer game use,
and being irritable when not playing a video game (Video Game
Addiction Organization). Due to the development of Science and
Technology, game addiction becomes more rampant which also
extends to adults because of the availability of the Internet on
where Facebook can be accessed. How about if games will become

Fabila, Daniel Carlo M.; 10833226; EI
more accessible to addicted gamers such as in Internet or in
social networking, what will happen? or Should Facebook be
allowed inside offices and schools?.

Facebook is predominately a social network, we understand
that; it has its value. I just dont really see how it adds
value to the work you do in the workplace said by Ontario
Premier Dalton McGuinty from Toronto Star reported by Kerry
Gillespie. Employees visited Facebook more than other internet
sites, Facebook has 6.8% of all traffic in the internet higher
than Google, Yimg, and Yahoo with only 3.4%, 2.8%, 2.4%
respectively (Van Grove, Jennifer, Mashable). Facebook do not
have the purpose to exist in a working area and do not have the
point to communicate with friends during working hours. Offices
and schools only allowed access to the Internet if it concerns
researches, emails, homeworks, source of information and other
business and school purposes. Facebook cannot be a supplement
for school activities and for business works. The impact of
Facebook to employees is that they become less productive in
work with an average of 1.5% employee productivity according to
the report from Nucleus Research while for students, a study of
Ohio State University released and showed that college students
who use Facebook spend less time studying and have lower grades
than students who dont use the popular social networking site
(Gaudin, S., Computerworld Inc.). There are already a lot of
corporate offices and schools started to ban the site not only
in the Philippines but worldwide including Canada. In Canada,
one company banned Facebook and in response, Facebook company
said, Facebook is an incredibly useful and efficient way for
people to share information with friends and co-workers. . . for
everything from campaigning to communicating with constituents
and staffs (Flavelle Dana, Toronto Star). This statement of
Facebook company shows the benefits of their website and implies
that they have a powerful website on which has millions of
users. In terms of power, Facebook has the power to control the
mindset of the employees and students that results to lose of
concentration and less productivity which should not be.
According to the third dimension of power, power exists when A
is able to influence the way B thinks so that the latter no
longer consider his/her interests as in conflict with As. Since
a lot of people are already using Facebook accounts, the power
comes from peer pressures and social trends. The A is the peer
pressure of having Facebook and B is the newbie. A person who
still does not have Facebook accounts yet is force to create one
because of social trends, not knowing that as an employee or a
student, the interest should be focus only into work or studies.
Only because Facebook has becoming popular, and millions of
people are already into it, the peer pressure of having Facebook
is very significant for the person who still do not have one

Fabila, Daniel Carlo M.; 10833226; EI
whose consciousness somehow had been manipulated by social
changes to create an account in Facebook. For my side, I can say
that I am Facebook user also but I am not somehow addicted to
its games. Before I had a Facebook account, a lot of people
wanted me to create one and asked me always, Why do you still
do not have a Facebook account?. My reply is Im not yet sure.
Im still studying. My thinking back then is to focus only at
studies and nothing more but I was forced to create one because
of peer pressure of the social trends. The minority which are
the non-Face book users is in compete with the majority which
are the Facebook users. Eventually, the minority will give in
and accept the defeat without knowing it. The peer pressure
through having a Facebook account is the force that deliberately
has power over the people. Because of this power, people,
including employees and students, are becoming more addicted to
social games and giving negative effects to their workforce and
concentration. Because of these social trends, people are all
into technological trends. So, when people hear new things about
Facebook like new games, new uploaded photos and videos, eyes
and ears are in attention not knowing the threats it bring.