I have read two articles about social networking one is about the negative effects of social networking and the other is about 5 positive effects of social networking. The first article written by Brian Jung has four major points. These points are false sense of connection, cyber bullying, decreased productivity, and privacy. He says that people focus so much time on these superficial relationships that our deeper connections with people will weaken. Yea I think that people do spend a lot of time on social networking sites trying to connect with people that don't really hold an important part of their lives and I can see how in some cases this could effect other relationships, but if your relationship with someone weakens because of another then I think that says something about your relationship and how much did it really mean to you in the first place.
Cyber bullying is something that everyone should be aware of and I do agree that it is a huge negative part of social networking, however there is often settings that allow a person to "block" someone from being able to leave comments or messages. I really think that to blame any type of bullying on something would be ignorant it is not social media that is the problem but rather some of the people who are using it. In fact prevention of bullying can be prevented much more easily then In really life because you can just make sure your page is private to only those who you trust.
Decreased Productivity is another negative that he talks about. Jung gives information from studies that say that companies had lost 2.2 billion a year to the social phenomenon. Again I agree that companies are loosing productivity because their employees are spending time on social networks instead of working. It could be hard to keep your employees from going onto their favorite social networking sight when they can even just press a button on their phone to get to it. On my phone it only take me four motions to get onto my Facebook.
Privacy is a big concern especially for someone like me who is going to become a teacher. A big negative is an employer being able to look up your social networking sight and see the things you put on there. My generations especially really loves to share everything on their social networking friends and some of that may come back to hunt you.
The positives are all things that many of us really benefit from and are the reasons why we have social networking. The first one that Harry Bhanot talks about is keeping in touch with others. This is an obvious one to me. Everyone is curious about how that popular girl or guy from high school turned out or who is dating who these days. This is also great for people like me who are far away from their friends and family. All I have to do is sign into my Social networking sight and I can see new pictures and updates about what everyone is up to. This is kind of linked to his second point which is a support group. I have my family as my friends on mine as well as friends who give me support when it is needed.
The next two are strengthening relationships and communities. These are really great plusses because with our economy doing so bad it really helps to be able to give a shout out to your favorite local business or post something about a local fundraiser. It is just so easy to get people involved.
His last point is another source of news. I am really skeptical about any news I read that I find on a social networking sight because it is like a wiki where anyone can post anything. so unless you are double checking your information social networking is a sketchy place to get your news.
Over all I enjoy Social networking sites but it is a love hate relationship because I do miss having to take and extra effort to keep in touch with people I think that it is important that we show effort in order to have good relationships. At the same time it is nice to just click a few buttons and see what everyone is up to.
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