Social Networking

As we all know, Facebook is the world's most popular social networking tool today, with the largest user base compared to any other site like it. Facebook's original and most fundamental use today is to connect individuals at all times in any place. For example; you may have made friends on your recent trip to a foreign country; what better way to stay in-touch with than becoming friends on Facebook. Aside from its most basic function, Facebook also alows individuals and organizations to form groups and invite others to become apart of the group. Through groups, people can share thoughts or ideas and collaborate in other ways. Nicole Ellison, who responded to a question by Stephen J. Dubney in his article, "Is MySpace Good for Society? A Freakonomics Quorum?" says that there are some positive aspects to social networking, "such as political activities organized via Facebook." The article "Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting" is an example another way corporate uses social networking: "professional recruiters have started hunting for job candidates using social networking technology — like the kind found on the popular sites MySpace and Facebook."

Everything has a positive and negative aspect to it, social networking sites especially. There are clear positive characteristics of social networking websites like Facebook. It is in an easy and convenient way to stay in-touch with long distance friends/family. It can help organize a corporate event or a friends surprise party. It can even help people get to know one another better with things that people post as their "interests/hobbies." In the article written by Stephen J. Dubney,"Is MySpace Good for Society?," Nicole Ellison responds to his question stating; "These students were using Facebook to increase the size of their social network, and therefore their access to more information and diverse perspectives." So a positive aspect of Facebook is that it can help strengthen relationships. Lets not forget about the other, negative side, these social networking sites have. The following link is about a girl from Long Island who about this time last year committed suicide due to hateful remarks written about her on the social networking site Formspring.me: "Alexis Pilkington." This is one of the MAJOR negative or "dark sides" to social networking sites, cyberbullying. Other negative aspects of social networking sites is the amount of private information one discloses. We are letting the world know where we are, what we are doing, as well as many other things.

I do not really see the social networking sites evolving much more than they already have. Unless there is a major scandal causing everyone to become anti-facebook, I believe it will stay the number one networking site for many years. If anything, these websites might become apart of our daily lives even more. Instead of having board meetings at the office, people have them via facebook.