Social, linguistic benefits of Facebook

Facebook has been developed as a special tool for social media to stay connected with friends and families across the world.  The users can communicate with lots of people at one time, can send or post notices about news or activities to groups of friends or members of the users' organisations and can update any change immediately. Hence the popularity of this social media has become an integral part of daily life of educated young population. It serves as a new means for people to communicate with others, new source of collective knowledge and entertainment. Facebook has established itself as the premier social networking website. Though Facebook critics decry a number of issues stemming from social networking in general, it provides a wealth of benefits to its users. As a member of the global village, Bangladesh is not lagging behind in this race. 

We know that Facebook users often use causal written English, which does not conform to the rules of spelling, grammar and punctuation. It has the potential to provide the users new expressions of language through its various available features. Young people use Facebook mainly for recreational purposes and the improvement they make in English language skills is incidental. It happens naturally and in the sub-conscious process which is the scientific formula of learning a language. Facebooking definitely helps us to understand the personality traits that motivate individuals to spend more hours on Facebook. Krashen (2004) is of the view that Free Voluntary  Reading may be the most powerful educational tool in language education.  It serves to increase literacy and develop vocabulary which subsequently leads to better writing skills. There, the reader is under no compulsion to develop language skills while reading a text; rather involuntary learning happens while under self -supervision. Acquisition refers to acquiring of the language through exposure which occurs subconsciously by participating in some natural communication and Facebook undoubtedly offers this opportunity. It also ensures users' attention, participation, collaboration, network awareness and critical consumption.  In all these activities, we come across a varied range of expression of communication that involves both productive and receptive skills, the basic skills of any language that aid the process of new language learning.  Krashen (1988) also says language acquisition  does not require extensive use of conscious grammatical rules, and does not require tedious drills. It requires meaningful interactions in the target language-natural communication -in which speakers are concerned not with the form of their utterances but with messages they are conveying and understanding. Best methods are, therefore, those that supply 'comprehensive input' in low anxiety situation, containing messages that learners really want to hear. Vocabulary development is one area where marked improvement is being perceived among the young users of Facebook. 

Facebook offers technological operations supporting a varied range of features and practices integrating several modes of computer medicated commutation such as self-presentation and one-to-one or one-to-many written exchanges. Good quality updates by people on Facebook can be used as tools for further discussions among students. Students may be given the challenging task of coming up with better thoughts and ideas on the topic concerned. Psychologists have looked at the words people use as a way of gaining insight into what is going on in their minds. This kind of linguistic analysis, however, has historically faced two main challenges. One is that researchers need to decide beforehand which words are associated with certain personality traits. The other is that the most common words make up the majority of people's vocabulary; gathering writing or speaking samples large enough to find truly meaningful correlations between words and traits was prohibitively difficult. Now Facebooking expresses the personal traits of the users. It exhibits their inner personality as well which they are not conscious of but the readers can easily identify their personality trait. 

It gives another sort of benefits to the students. They can post something on Facebook and teachers can correct and comment on those writings. It indirectly teaches the students structures and grammar points. It bears also social, interactive and communicative values. Today's global constraints often limit the amount of face-to-face student socialisation; however, SMSs offer new opportunities for students to connect easily with their classmates, peer learners and instructors on a new level that is more personal and motivating in many respects. As Mazer, Murphy and Simonds (2007) suggest, this type of interaction may have a positive effect on student-student and student-teacher relationships, and may consequently lead to a more positive learning environment. Secondly, by using such emerging tools, learners have greater autonomy and are actively involved in knowledge development since they have more control over learning itself. Rather than exclusively delivering information from textbooks, new technologies heighten the engagement of students in finding, recognising, and analysing resources on their own. 

A 2011 article titled 'Psychology Today' explains critics claim that Facebook isolates people from one another by putting users behind a computer screen but allows members to quickly and efficiently exchange information they once held private. Networking has always been a key component of business, but Facebook's massive social network contains significant resources for people seeking exposure. Facebook offers a number of benefits to marketing professionals and small business owners alike. With its massive user base, Facebook gives marketers a nearly limitless audience for commercial messages. Some organisations use Facebook pages to post newsletters and other updates, and business owners can use this information to keep abreast of competitor activities. In addition, Facebook users frequently share interesting details about their lives with hundreds of friends; people can use this information to keep track of popular culture and emerging trends. Facebooking is a medium of promoting what we do and let people know them. Before its invention, pen-friendship occupied that place but it is thousand times more interactive than pen-friendship.  It helps develop friendship across the world and keeps it active always. Developing social network globally using Facebook is the demand of the time and its social value is enormous which we cannot ignore any way. Though linguistic development comes incidentally while using Facebook, it bears an enormous value. 

The writer works in BRAC Education Programme

 as a specialist.

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