The Impact of Social Networking Sites - Essay Example

? ICT and Society – The Impact of Social Networking Sites Introduction The rapid pace of innovation in the field of information and communication technology (ICT) over the last few decades has abruptly transformed the ways of lives and businesses. People all over the world are witnessing the revolutionary changes led by different technologies advancements. The ICT has an amazing ability to provide the people unlimited opportunities to enjoy and gain the benefits in different fields information and communications. There are many ways in which the ICT is affecting the people and the society (Walter, 2001). People are witnessing the developments and innovation in different ICT fields like computers and internet, telecommunications and mobile telephone, mass media, travelling facilities and many more. ICT has very strong and direct impacts upon the human development and society. It not only serves the society as a whole but also tends to improve and develop the individual position of the people. There are several aspects of human and social lives that are facing the ICT effects. ICT developments are reshaping the cultural values of societies. ICT do lot of beneficial functions for the mental growth of humans. It facilitates the people to communicate in better ways, develop good understandings about different things and have deep knowledge and instant information about the events occurring in any part of the world (Kraut, 2006). The social networking sites over the last decade stand as new options provided by ICT that have facilitated the society by providing them interesting and attractive ways of interacting with the people. These sites have provided new and innovative ways of communication to the people having strong impacts upon their ways of interaction with the others. Overall, these sites support the human interaction regardless of space and time differences and make it easier for the people to remain in contact with the people they already know as well as to expand their social circle by finding out people of their interests on these networks. Social Networking Websites and Society The advent of advanced technology has paved the ways for certain new ways of social interaction. People of today’s technology driven world are provided with broad assortment of opportunities of social networking through internet (Wellman, 2007). The dotcom sphere is filled with several social networks striving hard for their survival and popularity among the internet punters. The applications like Face book, Twitter, Flickr and MySpace have evolved as popular online social networking means that have succeeded to attain the attention of the considerable portion of internet users through effective management and coherent leadership styles (Kazeniac, 2009). These networks are based on the ideas of providing people a platform to facilitate the process of online social networking however; the interface, interaction means and styles of these networks are notably different from each others. (Wellman, 2007) These applications provide the prospect of social interaction through numerous advanced options however; their approaches towards the attainment of this goal are entirely different that is clearly visible in their interfaces and styles of presenting information and options of maintaining social connections. These networks have picked up distinctive leadership style to lead the group of internet users looking for unique and advanced manners of communication and connections. Their distinctive leadership styles and strategies have worked towards maintaining difference in their popularity, effectiveness and stability within the industry. These social networking sites use to place wide range of options in front of the users and these networks are popular among different user groups like youngsters, business professionals, educationalists and households. The reasons behind the success and popularity of these networks include proficient and adequate management of the marketing and operational strategies, congenial organizational culture and effective leadership. These networks are managing their operations in quite effective manners to meet the expectations of the users. There are different strategies being employed by these networks to attract the attention of the users and the success of their strategies could be assured in terms of increase in the numbers of the users of these networks (Wellman, 2007). For instance, Face book is based on the appeal to reconnect with the old friends and family members as well as to connect with the new friends. Almost six year old Face book employs 1400 people and offers the search option using different key words that makes it possible to find out the friends or family member with specific geographic, educational or professional background. Similarly, it also allows finding out the people with common areas of interest, location, education and work fields. The features of instant messaging, image and video sharing and message to email are the other services that make people friendlier and close to Face book (Nicholas, 2010). Face book could be regarded as entertainment and information database offering its users information and interaction opportunities from all over the globe (Nicholas, 2010). Face book is quite interactive and open in nature because people of all the nationalities, races and religions are allowed to create the groups for the propagation of their ideas and thoughts. It provides people to share their ideas and thinking with other people through different pages, groups and polls. The Face book mobile service has further added to the effectiveness and worth of Face book for its users. (Nicholas, 2010) Twitter, unlike Face book has been regarded as bit harder and less user friendly for teens and household users (Compete Site statistics, 2010). Launched in 2006, Twitter offers micro-blogging and networking services by sending and reading the messages that have been given the name of tweets. It employs almost 141 people to manage its operations. The user of the network can send the text massages to other people in their circle or to those users of Twitter who have allowed open access. The website has succeeded to catch the attention of the internet users and has become one of the most popular social networking sites worldwide. It is also said that Twitter is the SMS service of the internet because the users are provided with the opportunity to send and receive text messages is simpler and easier way (Sagolla, 20090. The website developer aims to establish the image of the site as highly informative interaction platform where people could not only communicate with each other but can also get latest and update information from all over the globe. Twitter has proved its significance and usefulness for different business related functions because the technical experts have realized the expediency of this service for performing several business functions like blogging, promotional messages, online marketing etc. In this way, twitter has evolved as a marketing channel along with simple communication means between friends and family members. The facility to get instant reply of their messages make the Twitter users more loyal because by using this website they can become part of the discussion or debate on any topic they like. Twitter offers different communication settings to maintain connection with different groups of people like new and old friends, co-workers and family members etc. However, the users are not able to share different sort of information like audio and video due to which the communication between the members remains limited up to text messaging only. From this perspective, Twitter seems less functional as compared with Face book because people can maintain their connections more efficiently using Face book and its different features. Another popular social networking website is MySpace that employs around 1000 people and provides the services of interaction through its different features like groups, bulletins, applications, news, classified, TV and Mobile services, polls and forums. There are wide ranges of communication options provided to the users by MySpace. Before the popularity of Face book, MySpace had attained the position of U.S. most popular social networking website 2006. (Compete Site statistics, 2010). Like Face book, it also provides the users with numerous options like audio and video sharing, online chat and messaging etc. MySpace become successful to grab strong position in the market soon after its launch because it is backed by a media giant News Corporation that uses to engage significant numbers of audience and already have a rich history of reaching different user groups. It employs people that have deep understanding of the media culture and are in position to develop effective policies and strategies to catch the attention of the users. Despite the fact that Face book has bypassed MySpace there are still around 57mm US unique users who remain engage with MySpace to take part in variety of activities. The social networking sites are also surrounded with the issue of privacy of information. Some people found that these sites often disclose personal information of the people to the unknown people due to which they often get unwanted messages from them. However, the improved privacy policies of these sites now allow the users to manage their personal information in a way that only their desired information is shared to the unknown people and they are able to hire their detailed information from the others. In this way, the negative effects of the social networking sites should also be kept in mind while enjoying surfing these sites. The description and analysis of these services and options provided by some of the popular social networking sites unveils that the people are having unique ways of interaction with the others through these sites. Like several other innovations ICT seems to have strong impact upon the society through these social networking sites also because these sites involve people and compel them to spend considerable time of their day at these sites. Most of these sites have become part of daily routine of the people and most of the people find it easier to get hold of information about the others in lesser time ad with little effort. The social networking sites have effectively worked for shrinking the distance between the people living in different parts of the world as these sites people of different places at one platform where they conveniently share their information with each other. References References Compete Site statistics (2010). Monthly Normalized Metrics /May 2010. Retrieved online from: http://siteanalytics.compete.com/Facebook.com+Twitter.com+Myspace.com/ Kazeniac, A. (2009). Social Networks: Face book takes Over Top Spot, Twitter Climbs. Retrieved online from: http://blog.compete.com/2009/02/09/facebook-myspace-twitter-social-network/ Nicholas, C. (2010). At Last -- the Full Story of How Face book Was Founded. Business Insider. Retrieved online from: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-facebook-was-founded-2010-3#the-65-million-question-5 Kraut, R. (2006). PCs, Phones, and the Internet. NY: Oxford University Press Walter, O. (2001). Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. London, UK: Routledge. Sagolla, D. (2009). How Twitter Was Born. 140 Characters, Retrieved online from: http://www.140characters.com/2009/01/30/how-twitter-was-born/ Wellman, B. (2007). Physical Place and Cyber-Place: Changing Portals and the Rise of Networked Individualism. International Journal for Urban and Regional Research 25 (2): 227-52 Read More