Social Networking in Modern Life - Essay Example

Social Networking in Modern Life Internet has become such a huge part of our lives so far that we don’t even realize howthings have changed since it was invented. It is definitely obvious that one of the most significant changes has happened in the sphere of human communication, especially with appearance of social networking services like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Thus it is difficult to imagine a person who doesn’t have a Facebook account or doesn’t know what Instagram is, because the virtual communication is happened to be an inherent attribute of humans’ modern lives. Social networking indeed has changed our lives and we cannot deny this fact. People of all ages worldwide use Facebook to share with their friends of what’s going on in their lives; business people consider it as an official tool for business communication; politics use it as a public relations resource; and students forget doing their homework but they never forget to refresh their Facebook pages. Social networking has definitely changed people’s understanding of communicational standards. Event though communication has become much easier with appearance of social networks, still they also have caused a lot of social and personal problems for people. The very first thing that has a big influence on people’s lives with appearance of social networking is availability of other people for purposes of communication and quick access to their lives’ current events. From one side the opportunity to get to know either your acquaintances or unknown people better satisfies human curiosity about other people’s being. Still in some way social networks have encouraged people to strive to make their private lives as more public as it is possible. However, it seems like the tendency to disclose personal life is supposed to help people with low self-esteem to become more comfortable with socialization. Still psychological researches on people with low self-esteem showed that usage of Facebook makes them feel even more uncomfortable and miserable for many reasons such as seeing somebody else’s success or receiving unpleasant feedbacks from other users of social network services (Forest & Wood 595). First of all, the consequence of revelation of private life makes people unconsciously compete with each other on a matter whose life is better, so they often tend to show not exactly what is really going on in their lives but what they want others to know about their lives. This frequently multiplies fake personalities and dishonesty in human communication. Another harmful aspect of virtual publicity is that people start caring too much about others’ lives and sometimes it turns into serious cyber bullying, which even ruins entire lives. In fact it turns out that social networking often influences human lives in a harmful way, so, instead of raising their willingness to communicate with each other, people become unsociable and disappointed in communication. Another aspect of social networking influence on human lives is huge amount of time the services consume. Notwithstanding the fact that for some people social networks are not very pleasant places to spend time in, for others they become a resource of social activity and fame. That’s why when people get involved into the virtual social life and succeed in it they start spending more and more time in social networks. Later this kind of activity prevails before the real life ones, so people become addicted with the virtual reality. In the article “Is Facebook Distorting Your View on the World” Jessica Grogan describes the feeling of boredom and passiveness of existence that she once realized surfing Facebook. She claims that the social network not only consumes a lot of time but also makes people sad and depressed (n.pag). This happens because most of time people spend on Facebook is happened to be wasted because of passiveness of the surfing, so people feel like they don’t have anything to do in particular on Facebook, but in the meantime they can’t get out of there. This more looks like some depressive addiction that consumes people and their lives, so that they start looking for the way out, but their lives look empty in some way with lack of social networks. Notwithstanding the negative effects of social networking it also has an influence over human information awareness concerning multiple realms of the life. Using social networks people not only share events of their lives but also provide others with news and updates on any matters possible. Sharing news and knowledge impacts human intellectual development and encourages their individuality and independency in thinking and self-expression. Scientific researches denote that the messages adolescents get from media (including social media services) may differ from those they get in their families, so involving in social networking activities and sharing of information makes people construct their own understanding of the world (Arnett 529). First of all, sharing of information is a kind of self-expression for social networks users, because they can select what to share with their friends and this information somehow describes them as personalities. Also, the users have an opportunity to discuss different things within social networks services. These discussions and commenting allows people to make their voices heard, which supports the freedom of speech in modern societies. It turns out that social networking not only influences personalities but changes society in general. Furthermore, social networking is not only a tool of communication and informational sharing – it is a specific kind of modern culture. Users of social networking services have all required attributes of separated culture like own discourse, ethical rules (and their violations), and, of course, a special environment. Moreover, the social networking culture is an inherent part of modern culture in general, so it has created a specific way of thinking in people’s minds. For instance, they don’t worry how to find information or reach people they want to get to know because all of it is mostly available. Perhaps, this can also lead to some unpleasant consequences like that nowadays people are difficult to get lost if they don’t want to interact with somebody. The name “web” indeed describes what role Internet plays in human lives, as being involved into it once will create difficulties in getting rid of the virtual life later. It is a paradox that the virtual existence often replaces the real one, because people chose to live in the world that doesn’t even exist. For most of them social networking becomes a hiding-place where they can forget about their problems, pretend to be other persons, or communicate without showing real feelings. The realization of how much social networking means to people sometimes makes me scared of duality of modern society and culture. As I am a social networks user too from time to time I try to think of myself as a part of this big virtual community and I see what a huge part of my life it occupies. Still it definitely makes many things easier and more available for people, so, thanks to social networking, I have an opportunity to socialize any time I want. But we shouldn’t forget about the negative tendencies that come along with involvement in such social services, for example, of bullying, annihilation of private social sphere, orientation on other people’s lives, and creation of fake personalities. I also often notice that many people are get addicted to social networking life and become dependent of some of it attributes of social acceptance, for instance, they are hunting for ‘likes’ and followers, so often they demand attention in quite inappropriate ways. Such tendency is definitely not useful for personalities and society in general. Social networks mean a lot for nowadays people. The services have become a huge part of modern culture and for many people they are substitutes of real life. But indeed social networking has brought a lot of positive changes for people of modern industrialized society. Works Cited Arnett, Jeffrey Jensen. “Adolescents’ Uses of Media for Self-Socialization”. Journal of Youth and Adolescence. 24(1995): 519-532. Grogan, Jessica. “Is Facebook Distorting Your View on the World”. Encountering America. March 2014: n.pag. Forest, Amanda L. and Wood, Joanne V. “When Social Networking Is Not Working: Individuals With Low Self-Esteem Recognize but Do Not Reap the Benefits of Self-Disclosure on Facebook”. Psychological Science. 23(2012): 295-302. Read More