Social Networking

Social Networking sites are used in different fields, corporations, schools, social, and medical fields among others. These websites contribute to Society; they make quality connections between people, expanding opportunities for everyone.  Businesses are benefiting from using these websites as a marketing tool.  It is cheaper because businesses can promote their services or products, without cost. For example, anyone can open an account in Facebook to post any information they want. Social Networking for Human Resources recruiters as well, using it as a tool to find candidates for employment, according to “Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting” by Frank Langfitt.  Recruiters will locate new prospects according to their social networking accounts and what is posted as background. .

Although social networking sites are positively used in several fields, there is a “dark side” of using them.  The loss of privacy and lack of personal interaction, in my opinion, are the largest problems that their users are exposed to. People’s privacy is invaded, they share pictures, inform what they do, where they go, who, when, etc. The lives of these individuals become public. Regardless the profile is private or not- if my friend comments on my status, my friend’s friends will see that posting.  The information posted on these sites may be used for other purposes by strangers, such as harassing, bullying, or stalking others. People must protect their privacy at all times. A recent study has shown that young people is taking care of their privacy in these websites, as Marc Parry says in “Who cares about Facebook privacy? Students do”. Mr. Parry reports that specifically students are more careful when they deal with their privacy in Facebook. This is good because everyone must be watching what they post and knowing who will read the postings.

The lack of personal interaction is increasing among social networking users. People tend to reduce their conversations to quick messages and Smiles are reduced to a colon and parenthesis. As a result, we have kids that do not go out after school to play some sport, no longer phone call conversations with friends. Everything is reduced to just few lines and happy faces between each other. The question is- is this no personal interaction between people good for society?  Good or not, this is what is happening more and more every day according to “Antisocial Networking? By Hillary Sttout- The New York Times.

Nowadays, everyone uses social networking sites in one way or another. These sites have gone through an evolution; they are used not only to socialize but to expand businesses horizons, or learning groups, etc. This evolution made people’ habits to be changing along with technology advance, I think, in the future these websites will become the only way how people will look for jobs, schools, friend, housing, and everything else.