Essays

Consequences of social networking sites on the future of friendship and community

Introduction

In the past, people utilized portraits to illustrate to the world about their personal lives and details, the Ancient Egyptians painted whole walls it was considered a source of communication for the world. In our present lives that self portrayal has been replaced digitally and people now turn to social networking sites in order to present their lives, post pictures, share music, interact with friends and meet new people. Although social networking sites haven't been a part of our lives that long it certainly has taken over and people have accumulated it in their lives as if it were a matter of life and death. The earliest form of social networking was in the 1980's the website was called bulletin board system which has evolved into various forms over the course of a few years, today social networking sites like Facebook, my space have added additional features that make them more personal give out private details about a person.

Discussion

Social networking sites are not just confined to normal people politicians and businesses have also understood the importance of social media and have started opening pages on these sites, which shows how much it has taken over our lives, here we come across a very interesting phenomenon the degree of separation which states that every person is connected to another via a six degree of separation, social networking sites has reduced that degree by bringing people closer to each other and making communication easier. Social media sites are not only utilized by young college students anymore research shows that a majority of people on my space are 35 years and above. Relations have lost the arbiters of any community, location; family and occupation have no impact on any relations. Ultimately people's privacy and their personal relationships have been affected drastically due to social media, how a person can prevent another from posting private pictures, writing obscene comments everything is now out in the open all because of social media (Rosen, 2007).

Many supporters of social media argue that it is a place to learn people understand how to interact with others, share ideas and discuss informative topics. However everyone knows in such a platform it is highly unlikely that people would turn to education where there is so much more to do. Relationships have lost their exclusivity due to social networking sites, people ...