Social Networking Sites: Functions and Impacts - Report Example

? Social Networking Sites-Functions and Impacts Introduction Today’s world experiences the emphatic presence of strong models of social networking systems on internet through which information is shared for serving the aspect of public interest. With the aid of these social networking sites, business enterprises have realised the scope of new field of marketing experiment without spending large amounts of investment for advertising as this ‘virtual home’ connects the people faster and easier than other means. The recent developments in the marketing trend show the importance of facebook as the leading business brand promoter with millions of views everyday to know about a product. Similarly, many organisers have come forward with outbound enthusiasm to recognise the services of social networking sites as their most effective publisher for the promotion of events, mainly the film industry and service industries in tourism, hospitality and education. However, the higher levels of enthusiasm shown by people in the interesting features and entertainment potential of such sites bring about negative trends in the new generation in some areas of their expectations. This essay looks deep into the influential changes of social networking trends and their merits and demerits in the individual lives and education of the new generation and those affecting the modern world. Advantages of social networking sites In the technology-driven social life today, anything that promises guaranteed effort to time-saving aspects takes a step higher than any other benefit science can bring to man. Social networking sites such as facebook, twitter, likedin and Google+ offer extensive scope for sharing ideas by connecting people from wherever there is internet. Especially, facebook has a vast scope of promoting business through its banners and paid pages for advertisements apart from the usual walls. The scope of facebook today is unlimited for the business enterprises, especially for its amazing popularity. According to Westwood (2011, p. 95), facebook, which was started primarily as a student based networking now has grown a social networking site with growing opportunities for companies for setting up their own dedicated site as facebook groups or for creating applications or company advertisements. Similarly, other sites such as twitter, Myspace and Likedin etc contribute their own share in the field of benefits to the business society. The most noticeable element of these sites is their immediate access to an open public and the easiest solution to the quest for a review of new proposals of companies and organisers of events. In most contexts, the success ratio can be predicted from the digitalised review of the advertisers’ views by the readers on facebook and thereby necessary changes can be made in the actual presentation. In the field of education, social networking and internet access at home and school has proved substantially good for the students’ career excellence. Effective use of such websites allocate for combined study times and online updating of current status of learning among classmates. Some of the groups formed by students themselves can act as a group learning virtual classroom and work accordingly for better results. More interestingly, the BBC reports (Coughlan, 2009) reveal that the approval of facebook use in the campus reduced drop-out numbers and students are becoming more enthusiastic to learning by sharing information among co-students and teachers regarding their curriculum based assignments. Even for the people, the entry of social networking sites as the greatest means to plan their daily activities and getting connected among similar interest groups for obtaining information on politics, travel, health and entertainment apart from their purchase needs. Challenges of social networking sites Social networking sites are worthy of connecting people and their ideas beyond imaginable limits. However, they pose serious threats to personal as well as organisational objectives if they are not used carefully. There are many personal challenges posed mainly by facebook; most importantly its addictive nature and unprotected exploration chances for others to interfere with the users’ personal life. Since a large majority of the users are fun-seekers, ethical standards of some of the users may violate the dignity of other users due to the cultural variations as well as the varied levels of morality concerns. Clearly stating, facebook and other leading social networking sites visibly do more harm in the long run than their expected levels of advantage. As they exploit the basic human urge for entertainment and socialising, a large amount of active hours of the users is taken away by them. Based on some statistics, (Patrick, 2008, p. 401), it is estimated that facebook contributes to a great amount of productivity loss to employers and lacks enough support in contributing to their business as it engages most of its applications merely for users’ fun, thus they are not scientifically mature to cater the needs of growth and sustainability of business enterprises. Apart from the losses to the business world, facebook currently acts as the potential tool for playing with the games of sacramental relationships between individuals. The irresponsible norms of opening a digital identity help many miscreants to introduce fake account information for entering such networking sites and disturb the personal life of others. In many contexts, they use it for flirting and posting obscene videos to fulfil their psychological requirements. There are many issues reported by prominent sites about the tragic stories of devastated personal lives due to the misuse of facebook where spouses caught cheating each other (Facebookcheating.com 2011). Even in the field of education, students and teachers waste a lot of time ignoring academics resulting in a productivity and intellectual loss to the upcoming generation due to the misuse of its facilities. How they work technically Social networking sites have login gates through which a user registers his details and obtains a digital identity and a password. As he enters the sites, he has options to invite friends using their email-ids or digital identities. When the invitations are accepted by the other user, he can stay connected with them through a ‘fiends list’. Facebook has walls, chat boxes, and message boxes for expressing views and sending personalised messages. It also has facility to send attachments of various formats. The provisions of posting pictures, videos and texts give opportunities to the user for socialising and viewing responses. Thus the process of initiating ideas and responding to them by the readers continue as part of their daily life by making the site alive as long as there are users. Social networking sites use sound profiles of technical features to facilitate its functioning with applications designed for member registration and interaction within the community for socialising and gaming. For instance, facebook uses open source SDKs for Android, C#, iPhone, JavaScript, PHP and Python for building platforms. Developer tools like codemod, Facebook Animation , flvtool++, Online Schema Change for MySQL, Phabricator, PHPEmbed, phpsh, Three20, XHP and XHProf to create their web pages and application software for specified areas of its functioning. Other engineering tools like Apache Hadoop, Apache HBase, Cfengine, jemalloc, memcached, MySQL, PHP and Varnish are used to analyse the application request for separate functions required by the users in their interaction with facebook (Facebook Developers, 2011). Future of social networking The entry of social networking sites has changed the face of public life in many countries. A survey in the UK (Waters, BBC) reports the alarming growth of ‘young’ users accounts in facebook and other leading social sites which also says that “around 19% of all UK youngsters have a presence on a social networking site” (Waters, 2008). An originally meant friend finder, facebook has touched the 800 million users now with a magnificent growth rate every month since its public presence in 2008, while the other sites such as twitter and google+, bebo are showing their piece of excellence in the socialising trend in the present time. Corporate business giants and potential entrepreneurs have identified the potential of this virtual marketing tool for making most of their chances. Some organisations have started installing social networking sites as their management tools with an expectation to provide employees the freedom to express opinions. According to an observation, “incorporating these tools into an organisation’s normal workflow can serve as a catalyst for intergenerational communication, creating new vehicles to develop shared perspectives and speed the achievement of common goal” (Jue, Marr, & Kassotakis, 2010, p.34). Recent trends seen on facebook indicate the promising growth of marketing and brand promotion of consumer goods, games, movies and all other commercial products for a minimal cost through social networking sites. Facebook serves as an open platform for public review of products and events and this trend is expected to continue throughout the future. People seem happy to enjoy the field of interactive debates on issues of social importance and easier means of passing messages through facebook. There are many instances in which facebook served as an emergency tool to connect people at rescue operations in calamity affected areas. The service of facebook and other sites can be utilised for making interest groups of students for the promotion of their community study circles and internet based competitions supervised by experts and parents. Government authorities also can use the scope of facebook in making personalised awareness campaigns and giving tax alerts to public. They can also reduce cost of conducting public surveys for generalised information through digitalised social opinion polls. Thus the future benefits of social networking sites are limitless. However, if they are not supervised and effectively used, the result will be the emergence of productively weak and ideologically immoral generation for the future. Conclusion As an overview, it can be seen that social networking sites such as facebook have their influence on people to a great extent in almost every socially interactive human activity. Business organisations have identified the intensity of public interaction with these sites and consider them to be the best media to advertise their products’ brand names. These sites are built and operated on strong technical platforms giving absolute attention to user satisfaction. Though the young world consisting students is obviously addicted to the regular use of such sites, their dignified use can promote a wide range of organisational activities for social benefits for the future. References Coughlan, S 13 October 2009, ‘Facebook cuts student drop-outs’, BBC News, Viewed 29 November 2011, Facebookcheating.com 2011, ‘Affair on Facebook.. share your story on TV?’, pp.1-18, Viewed 29 November 2011, Facebook Developers 2011, ‘Open source’, Viewed 29 November 2011, Jue, AL, Marr, JA & Kassotakis, ME 2010, Social Media at Work: How Networking Tools Propel Organizational Performance, Jossey-Bass, USA. Patrick, K 2008, ‘Social Networking/ Social Media in a Business Context: Consequences, Concerns, Benefits?’, in K O’Sullivan (Ed), 5th International Conference on Intellectual Capital, Knowledge Management & Organisational Learning: New York Institute of Technology, Academic Publishing Limited, UK. Waters, D 02 April 2008, ‘Children flock to social networks’, BBC News, Viewed 29 November 2011, Westwood, J 2011, Marketing Your Business: Make the Internet Work for you; Get into Exports; Learn about Products and pricing, Kogan Page Publishers, US. Read More