Role of Online Social Networks in Affecting Daily Life of People - Essay Example

?The role of online social networks in affecting the people's daily life e.g. social relations and social identity Table of Contents Introduction……………………………………………………3 Social Networking Sites and Social Relations…………………4 Social Networking Sites and Social Identity…………………..10 List of References……………………………………………….15 Introduction The 21st century has given man numerous gifts. Life, as we know it, changed completely and permanently with the birth of a new kind of communication medium known as social media networking. It was less than a decade ago that this complex yet popular medium started with the launch of Myspace, as a new and integrated social network. Since then, social media networking has taken over our lives with an incredible pace. The notion of modern communication roots back to the invention of the telegraph and television, yet the extreme impact which this modern medium has on our lives is implausible and unmatched. The urge to stay connected with the friends, family and even unknown world is unquenchable and voracious. The list of the social networking sites goes on and on, with major sites like Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, and Orkut,, etc. This raises many questions like why, what and how these sites are becoming a central part of our life and why we are becoming more and more involved in this craze of being updated and keep updating? Another important question is how social relations are being affected by these online networking sites. It is also significant to know that how our social identities are being formed by these new social mediums of communication. The communication mediums of the past have failed to provide such vast access to constant communication: we can connect globally with whoever we want. This has further truncated the concept of the global village to small machines with the help of internet. Now every mobile, lap top/computer and what not, comes with the facility of the internet to gain global access to information and communication. Most importantly, social networks have brought the people closer. In the past a person abroad was a person lost forever. Now we can talk to them, see them and be connected with them in many ways. Every generation and era communicates in its own style; this has evolved from smoke signals to letters to telegraphs to telephones to now a new medium ...internet. Yet somehow the strong desire to keep in touch has been always there and always drove people to find means to communicate in one way or another. It is extraordinary that we are socially ‘networked’ and human history is evident that we have equipped ourselves of many consecutive systems and mechanisms for facilitating and maintaining these networks. The social networking is somehow very important in every walk of life in current times. These have started to shape socio-economic culture across globe. One is always at amusement at the challenge of rapidly changing and urgent nature of social networking. Now people are able to maintain a socially active bond via sitting alone in front of a computer. These bonds may be rigorously familial, social, official, educational, economical or even emotional and romantic, etc. Social Networking Site and Social Relations: It goes without saying that social media has enabled the people to organize their social lives. People establish relations in the virtual world where they meet new people and make friends to organize real world relations. But many people believe that the social media has badly affected the social relations of the people and the quality of life has been at stake due to unnecessary reliance on the social media for real world relations. A survey conducted a social site Badoo states that about 39 percent of Americans spend more time online in socializing with the strangers online rather communicating people in person. A huge percentage is more interested in making friends online than offline which is destroying the social fabric of society. People care for those in the virtual world than present in the real world, which make them indifferent of the real world phenomenon. In another survey about 24% of the respondents say that many of the times they miss out the family time and special moments because they are busy in scripting their life time experiences online (Laird 2012). A new concept of global friendship has emerged linking to these sites. As discussed above social networking sites assist in relationship building. Facebook initiated as a connection for university students now has become a connection for people across globe. Twitter has become a useful source of communication between public figures and an ordinary man, actors, players, etc. MySpace was once recognized as one of the most renowned methods that musicians utilized to promote their work and themselves, and to connect with their followers. But all this has been done by using a hyped phenomenon ‘friend’ a common terminology used by most networking sites. This novel yet expanding concept of global friendship has been regarded with major criticism. At first, it was the development of the concept ‘friend’, which invoked such a high response of intellectual interest and concerns. In the past, the main concern was that all these socializing websites will provide ‘virtual’ friendship and lack of ‘real world face to face interaction’, and another concern about the fact that these friendships will never replace ‘the real thing’ or have been condemned to the equivalent of ‘face to face’ connections’(Cocking & Matthews 2000). Many scholars like Briggle (2008) opposed that notion and commented that online friendships could be more sincere than offline ones, as physical distance provides secure, honest, deliberate and thoughtful exchanges in communication. It was originally perceived that social networking sites will engage strangers in virtual friendship but it is amazing to note that the majority of users of these sites are using them to mainly better and enhance relationships with the people they are closest to, away from the online world, like close familial relations, class fellows and co-workers’ (Ellison, Steinfeld and Lampe 2007; Ito et. al. 2009; Smith 2011). So, these sites both develop new bonds and enhance the old ones, all at the same time. But the way we communicate with each other socially has drastically changed. The dynamics of our social groups and friendship are changed. “They devalue the meaning of ‘friend’. Our traditional notion of friendship embraces trust, support, compatible values, etc. On social network sites, a ‘friend’ may simply be someone on whose link you have clicked”. The people’s circle of friendship grows with a single click but the intimacy in friendly relations and the bond expected in a true friendship is non-existent, so, the greater the social interaction, the lesser the bond in relationships (Kaitlin 2010). Social media networking sites may have negative effects on the romantic social relations of partners. Individuals can receive a lot of information about their partners online. A lot of information about the partner is revealed when a partner is an active user and he/she posts on the profile or when tagged in other friends’ photos. If a partner makes friendly comments on someone else profile, it can induce jealousy in the partner as a lot of information becomes available about everyday’s activities (Persch, as cited in Utz and Beukeboom 2011). Family is the fundamental social institution which helps in mushrooming other social relations and the marriage is the basis to the success of this institute. According to a recent study conducted by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (AAML), there has been seen a significant increase in the divorce rate using the social media as an evidence. About 50 percent of the marriages in United States end in divorce and the reason to all in most cases is the careless use of the social media where people upload photos of social activities, current locations and relationship status with all history. In many cases it has been observed that evidence from social media proved fatal for both parties at time of divorce or a child custody case (Zell 2012). The recent case in India proved that how Facebook and other social networking sites are destroying the social relations where a woman filed a case of divorce from the husband because he did not change the status from ‘single’ to ‘married’. The Husband stated in the court that it just slipped away from his mind to update the status as they got newly wedded. This shows the state of social relations affected by the use of extended media use (The Indian Express 2012). Social networking sites have also become detrimental for other societal relations such as employee and employer relation. A Giborne man was fired from his job when his pictures were found on the Facebook by the boss after his application of sick leave. Many people were sacked from their jobs when they uploaded their pictures of enjoyment, parties or sick leave being on sick leave. Social media outlets prove a place where bosses can have an eye on the activities of their employees and consequently they can be sacked from their jobs (Chatterton 2012). Social media over the years has proved detrimental for employee and employers’ relations as everyone can have an eye on each other’s activities. Nothing is personal and justifications have to be made in real world for photos or comments made in virtual world. Social networking along with negative effects on social relationship does have positive effects too. This new medium could be used to show signs of high commitment to the partner in romantic bonding. For example, when a partner sets a status ‘in a relationship’ on Facebook, it shows a kind of commitment that helps in strengthening the relationship in real world by both partners. It goes without saying that social media networking is used in order to maintain social relationships so that the ties with weaker social relations could be enhanced. People come in contact with those far away relations whom they cannot meet face to face. This is possible due to the social media that people become able to know each other and can also develop more intimate relations (Ellison, as cited in Utz and Beukeboom 2011). Privacy issues over the Facebook have been a detrimental factor in social relations. The potential use of location-based social networks for stalking or other illicit monitoring of users' physical movements, are few examples. A lot of disapproval has been directed towards ‘Facebook’ for its privacy policies (Spinello 2011). Privacy policy changes again and again without prior knowledge of its individual users. Lanier (2010) portrays this point quite skeptically, saying: “The only hope for social networking sites from a business point of view is for a magic formula to appear in which some method of violating privacy and dignity becomes acceptable”. The excessive use of these sites makes us vulnerable to many types of privacy breaches. To mention the breaches which are less destructive are: being watched, private pictures become public, successes are shared and our losses are mentioned. When people want to hide their history on Facebook and it becomes available due to privacy issues on the site, it is more likely to threat the relationships. Intimate status and discussion with an ex spouse or partner can destroy the current relationships. A recent research revealed that teenagers are increasingly using codes for the activities on those sites to hide the reality of their activities from parents, siblings and sometimes even regular friends. These codes provide the opportunity to do whatever they want without any fear of social judgment and embarrassment in front of people. Sex has emerged as one of the biggest hurdles facing the youth in regards to new media. The youth being the highest users of these sites are at a high risk of exposure to unhealthy sexual practices. This therefore poses as a big challenge for the youth since most of them depend on the media for direction and ultimately this excessive use of immoral sites may expose them to unhealthy activities in real life which can harm their social relations and destroy their respectable social status in a very early age. In relationships that exist on the social networks, misuse of social media creates tribulations that actually never existed in the past. Childish misunderstandings, inappropriate photos and discussions that emerge from social media, cyber space bullying and all sorts of things that happen online can create societal issues for the youth. There is no lie is saying that the parents today are facing more negative comments on ‘generation gap’ as ever before. The modern technology and the rampage of social networking sites has increased the generation gap than present in the past which has also affected in the social relationship existing in the parents and children. Modern children have grown up with technology in lap while parents feel left in the generation gap which is too difficult to close soon. That’s why, today, parents had to learn the use of social media so that they could communicate with their children through these sites as the gaps between children and parents is increasing day by day and the socialization of a family has become endangered. Although the technology has been adapted extensively by both parents and children but both parties feel that face to face communication is much desirable to maintain friendly and lively relationships (Simonpietri 2011). Mead (1970) describes that social media or social networking sites have numerous effects on the child parent relationship. The children today are not limited in adaptability while their parents are not so. The youth does not restrict to past like their parents rather they look towards future so that they can meet the standards of the current world. Parents are limited in knowledge of the new technological world, that’s why young people and their parents have different stance and perspective with reference to different scenarios and this ultimately affects their social relation. As both parties do not feel compatible with each other and resultantly they start avoiding each other and generational gap keep on rising. Social networking sites have different impacts on social relations. A recent study suggests published in the Evolution and Human Behavior, the team of researchers from the University of Wisconsin found that when girls are stressed by a test talked with their moms, stress hormones dropped and comfort hormones rose. It means that when people communicate via technology channels with each other, it means they are not communicating in a healthy way and ultimately their relationships cannot result in healthy relation. None the less, excessive use of media sites by teenagers may lead to isolation, lower interest in school or family life, depression and lack of judgment, etc. (‘This is Your Brain on Facebook’, n.d.). A personal profile is created when anyone joins a site like Facebook or Orkut. We happily share personal information like our names, where we are in our relationships, what we do professionally, our ethnic background, personal pictures, videos, the religion to which we belong, our ethnic background and our interests, make new friends or converse with former acquaintances. Approximately 91% of youth tends to use these networks for communication and sharing with already known friends (Lenhart & Madden, 2007). Use of these sites gives confidence and greater exposure of information, social contacts and the broader community to our youth. Ahn (2010), in her study concluded that “regular users of Facebook and Myspace who are high school students report substantially larger levels of social capital than the non users. So, above discussion proves that social networking sites affects the people’s life in multiple ways. The social relations can have positive and negative both effects from the online networking sites but everything depends on the users that how they keep a balance in the online life and the virtual life. There is no doubt that online networking make youth aware of different angles of life and give them multiple opportunity to find and establish friendly relations but balance is the key to success so that negative effects could be minimized. Social Networking Sites and Social Identity: Social media plays both positive and negative role in not only creating the social relations but it also plays an effective role in forming social identities. The social networking sites offer a platform where the idealized self presentation can be executed. (Kramer &Winter, 2008) said that social media is place where people create desirable identities that are different from the real world identities in order to become famous and admirable among their friends. Impression management is a key motive behind people creating and maintaining their online profiles (Zhao, as cited in Utz and Beukeboom 2011). As people choose those pictures for their profile which make them look beautiful and presentable to attract opposite sex. (Zhao, as cited in Utz and Beukeboom 2011) states that people with the high need to be popular on the social media create these idealized images. People most of the time create images on social networks that they are in a happy relationship with their partners. This way, social media becomes a positive tool for many people to improve their image and in creation of their social identities and they can get positive feedback in the real world. This type of activities and image building on the internet give the people a plenty of satisfaction that enable them to go in life with a positive attitude many times but such activities can also separate them from their real identity in the real world. Social networking sites provide anonymity so people can hide their social identity. As everyone is present online from an unknown place regardless of location on the whole globe, no one is convincingly present. Presence via social networking sites are regarded as diminished: we can block unwanted presence and can leave at any given time, no burdensome or unwelcome persons can bother us; as many screenings and blocking options are present. Unfortunately, this has lead to dual problems as well. First, we are usually missing meeting people we would have met in parks, gatherings, parties or playground by actually being present there. This can lead to isolation and lack of confidence in self. People mental state is transformed into something that requires them to communicate while hidden behind a wall. The sense of security that give the confidence to utter whatever is felt like; also takes away the ability to face the real situations; may they be good or bad, meeting people and socializing leads to mental and social satisfaction. Secondly this immobile addiction to the web communication deprives us of socially appropriate characteristics, and we miss on the development of skills to judge real life situations which require intelligent eyes and ears, etc. the lack of personal communication diminishes the person’s likability to learn from actual experiences. It also instills the misconception among the users that experience is being gained through such communications. The morals learned through interpersonal communication have been diminished by these networks. ‘Like’ or ‘dislike’ or comments on the posts on social sites and useless feedback to your updates may give people a false sense of achievement. It is important to note that these kinds of likes or dislikes are not enough tools to judge achievement or failure of the people. As, these sites are capable of producing a false sense of achievement. They are also producing a false sense of failure and leads to depression. Smith (n.d.) in his article has revealed that excessive use of social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter is causing depression and frustration in youths. This sometimes comes in the form of relationship break ups, spite, isolation/rejection which is detrimental to social identity of a person. Similarly, (Dreyfus 2004) categorically states that “Anyone using the Net who was led to risk his or her real identity in the real world would have to act against the grain of what attracted him or her to the Net in the first place”. Facebook only presents the information that is self-selected. When we build our profiles or we comment on friends' status messages, we are making conscious choices about how to construct an online identity which is different from the social reality. People think that this is a justifiable act because they are making available the best versions of their selves to people and in response, they get positive feedback which is a source of self satisfaction for them (Sandler 2011). Social networking sites like Facebook have created many social identity issues. Everyday people, especially teenagers, are getting cyber bullied. With such an easy access to the basic information about an individual, identity theft and exploitation of a person has become a common occurrence. The primary negative impact of this is on females, who are exploited and abuses through blackmailing. Although security facilities are provided, which allow the users to limit the information that is available for public-viewing, these can be easily bypassed. Numerous cases have been observed about stolen and misused identities, in which the person commits any act desired, while some other person has to face the consequences. As in many cases the females upload their photos on the sites and these pictures are manipulated in a devastating ways by anonymous people. The pictures are photo shopped in dirty postures with boys and then they are circulated on the internet. The social identities are created in order to blackmail people which prove very detrimental for a person’s social status as he/she has to move in social circle ranging from office to friends and family. In the current world of problems, identity is the primary aspect that is needed to be protected. With each passing day, new crimes and issues are emerging relating to social networks. The advantages are many but outweigh the risks only if due diligence is observed. Conclusion Social networking sites as an endless part of our daily lives have associated advantages and disadvantages. For example, we can make friends from all over the world; get to understand different cultures yet get detached from our own culture and family life. Our accounts get hacked and big mess is waiting for not only us but also the people linked to us on these sites. Social networking as a great revolution has taken over our lives. Confidence, sharing, socializing and interacting are the main advantages. Once shy are now able to open their thoughts and ideas to others. Sustaining relationships with steady communication is made possible. Unlimited benefits lure us towards the use of social networking sites. It should be taken into account that how much information we are sharing and with whom are we sharing. We should be very vigilant in protecting our privacy through privacy filters. The people should be careful that to what extent they are using the social media. They should not go that far in the virtual world that they forget about the real time relations. Many times, people rely so much on the social media to communicate with digital friends that they cannot give time to their parents, close friends, kids or life partners. The fascination of social media might lead to irrecoverable damages; recovering from which can be a challenging task to achieve. People need a balance in the real life and social networking site so that they can live a healthy life which keeps their real lives in peace and comfort. No doubt, these sites provide constant entertainment by breaking the monotonous life of individuals. These sites are packed with activities, games contest and competitions, etc. This never allows you to get bored and you will never be alone again. These act as a mental breather from a hectic routine, while allowing the opportunity to remain up- to-date regarding the happening in the life of acquaintances and relative. Finally, we are at a risk of getting addicted to these sites. This can create a serious problem like low productivity, isolation, etc. Social networking should be done but one should not do it continuously as anything done in excess is injurious. Social relations and social identities are very much needed to be secured as our whole life depends on it. 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