What is the Impact of Social Networking Technologies - Essay Example

Factors that lead to this are for instance love affairs, revenge, flirting, and love obsession. Types of cyber staking include impersonating profiles, intimidating, threatening, and harassing. In concurrence, Buti et al. (2011) argue that implications of social networking-based harassment on individuals have long-term behavioral and psychological effects such as being extremely cautious of surrounding environments, anxiety, isolation, and depression.  However, Buti et al. (2011) identify the positive impact of social networking to include the capacity to facilitate people with common activities and interests to socialize thereby rendering them to be more informed and stay in touch with their families and friends.

In the same respect, Limoli (2012) notes that because social networking is now part of both business and personal life, the majority of dental practices have now embarked on expanding their markets via social media. As such, there is increased visibility of the dental practice. In another aspect, Azu et al. (2012) note that at least one out of fifteen persons in the United States of America search for health information through social media. In that case, patients are able to easily critical information pertaining to medical professionals and medical conditions. However, one of the hindrances is the failure of physicians to realize the nature and effect of such health information obtained via social networks. Conversely, surgeons are predisposed to a unique position in that they do not spend most of their time creating long-term relationships with patients. Consequently, Marcia (2011) argues that social networking enables people to communicate on a real-time basis with their friends by posting status updates. Besides, social networks for instance Facebook and MySpace enable people to create their own space on the internet by setting up a profile page with their photos and personal information. However, Marcia (2011) goes on to argue that social networking technologies have encouraged people to become more isolated thereby eliminating the traditional face-to-face conversations.

On the other hand, social networking technologies render people to become more susceptible to identity theft, compromised privacy as well as exposing young individuals to online predation (Marcia, 2011). Nevertheless, with the current pace of research and development in the field of Information Communication and Technology, social networking technologies will continue to be the most popular method of communication in the future.