SOCIAL NETWORKING

Social Networking Technologies



Social Networking Technologies

Introduction

Over the past few years, social networking has gained wide popularity in all aspects of life. People now rely on social networking websites and technologies for various activities such as communicating with friends and family, playing games, collaborating with work group and many more. The social networking has drastically affected the society and community. This essay discusses some of the positive and negative impacts the social networking technologies have on the society and community.

Discussion

As a growing technology, social networking has played an enormous role in modern society. The social media introduced the concepts of user participation and interactivity (O'Reilly T., 2005). Now days, the social networking websites, such as Face book have become a vital ingredient of our daily life activities. It is evident that social networking media has substantial affects that change society both positively and negatively. The social networking technologies impact the ways, people live their life.

The concept of social media and networking embeds with the digital age, in which every activity of our life depends on technology and gadgets. In this age, where ever one is busy performing routine jobs or tasks, social activities highly rely on internet or social networking websites, such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. Communication with friends, family and colleagues using internet and social networking websites has become popular. There are various reasons why people prefer the social networking websites for communication over any other communication means. A few years ago, people had limited means of communication in order to connect and keep in touch with others, such as telephone, telegraph, mail, etc. All of these technologies were costly in comparison to the internet, and also time consuming. Also, the older communication technologies such as telephone were not affordable for everyone or easily within reach. Today, people are able to connect with each other through web-based services that are proved to be efficient, fast, and powerful. Due to this fact, social networking has become a globalized phenomenon that could spur a revolution, mobilize a community for a proclaimed cause, connect like-minded people of similar interest or profession, or simply share news, opinions, debates and views among a group of people.

The social networking websites provide the people a privilege to connect with their relationships without the need of actually visiting them, or making a phone call. Today, when nearly everyone equips with a desktop computer, laptop, smart phones and PDA's, it is very convenient to connect with friends while working in office or travelling.

More commonly, a social networking website is a place where a person set up his or her online profile, makes friends, and communicate with them. These friends may be from the group of people whom the person knows in real life, or may be completely unknown. The technological aspects of different social networking websites are similar; however the cultural values of these sites may vary (Boyd, D., and Ellison, N., 2007). For example, some websites encourage a person to make friends only those ...