Ielts Writing Task 2- Exercise 1

The use of social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, is replacing face-to-face contact in this century. Do you think the advantages of this way outweigh the disadvantages?

In today’s digital age, social media is wildly used by numerous people in the world. Therefore, some individuals think the use of social network such as Facebook and Twitter is changing the way we communicate. In my opinion, although there are drawbacks, social media also brings us more benefits.

Social networks are becoming very popular due to these following reasons. Firstly, it helps people save money. In the past, when people talked with their friends living abroad, they had to pay for international calls, which cost a lot of money. However, nowadays, they are easy to have an instant communication with them through using Facebook or Twitter without paying any cost. Secondly, individuals can discover valuable information thanks to it. Since Facebook has many pages about news assisting everyone in keeping up with the latest news. Moreover, if anyone wants to enhance their knowledge of some fields such as cooking, they will learn from a wide range of its pages with plenty of courses. Thirdly, Facebook gives a great chance for business owners. Shopping online is growing significantly when sellers is advertising their products through posting many pictures to their own page and exchange many messages with their customers via it.

On the other hand, using social media leads people to some issues. Firstly, it makes persons to be addicted to it. It seems that today, people visit their friends less than in the past because they prefer sitting plenty of hours chatting with their friends via facebook than having face to face contact. In addition, instead of spending time on talking with friends when having a date, a lot of young people usually focus on their smart phone to check messages on facebook or post their pictures to their page. Secondly, it causes leaking personal information. When users reveals their personal information on Facebook, they can be stolen their personal information by hackers or an organization for bad purposes. For example, 87 million users were affected by data breach when using Facebook. Their information was shared with Cambridge Analytica for political purposes in the U.S.A and the UK.

In shorts, even though there are some disadvantages of using facebook, it still have more advantages. Therefore, we should use social network effectively and spend more time for our relationship in real life.