Social Networking

Social Networking

            Social Networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or MySpace are used by millions of people around the world. Some benefits to society are that people can keep in touch with family and friends much easier even if they live abroad. These days, people live in rush, so they can easily and for free connect with friends at any time. Online community is very diverse. You can learn from others people, share ideas and opinions that are not familiar to you. Also, kids can benefit from social networking sites. They can become more familiar with technology what can be useful later on at school and they can become more confident in social relation since they can get to know more people online. Social networking becomes very important in school because most of the time teachers communicate online with students or they have online discussion where everyone is force to post ideas.  Students can create blogs, discussion forums and collaborate with teachers and classmates. However, there is also the dark side of this technology. People have to learn how to protect themselves from the strangers because information that you post can be used against you. Every post, blog, picture, or status update can be stored online forever. In the article Leaving ‘Friendprints’: How Online Social Networks Are Redefining Privacy and Personal Security we can find information that people post which are combined with new technologies for gathering and compiling data,  and it can create a fingerprint-like pattern of behavior. “The information provides opportunities not only for legitimate business purposes, but also for the nefarious aims of identity thieves and other predators.” Companies track what websites you check and build your characteristic based on your interest. I think in the future because of social networking we will completely loss our privacy. Internet users are unaware if the information that they provide online are used ethically. People who use social networking sites are targeted by marketing ads. Marketing companies track social networking pages, they check their status change (for example having upcoming birthday) to deliver advertising targeted to their interest. In addition, our social networking profiles are checking not only by our friends, but also by potential employers.  Potential employers know that by viewing someone’s profile they can see the truth character of the recruiter. People often think that only friends have access to profile, so they post inappropriate pictures for instance when they are drunk, or some offensive opinions. Potential employers can see what kind of person you really are. But there is also a positive side. According to the article Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting written by Frank Langfit, professional recruiters start to search for a potential job candidates using social networking sites. One of the sites is called LinkedIn. If you use this site, it is easier to send your resume to the companies, but also some firms can search you without any problem. I think in the future, more and more people will be involved in social networking sites. Also, the social networking sites will change for the new one like was in the case when MySpace was the most popular, but later one Facebook took its place.