Websites Providing Social Interaction - Essay Example

Introduction As the Internet gets more common in every country and every house people find it easier to connect to each other across the globe. The Internet has proved to be a major tool in making the world a global village. People can communicate with each other through the Internet, find old friends and run their businesses. Internet not only provides financial benefit to the people using it but it has other major aspects also that prove it to be an asset to humanity. Internet not only helps in working but also has a side that provides entertainment to people of all ages. For example people can play games online and have fun. Its easy now to make a website that belongs to a certain university and has all the students as members in it. Or a website that offers the user to increase its social circle by interacting with different type of people across the globe. I was going through a local magazine today and found a section in it that had real stories about people’s experience on the Internet. I was not amazed at all to find out the story about a happily married couple that first met on the Internet in a local chat room. Events like this are becoming common in the world. This story only tells about people living in the same region but in fact there are stories about people living in different parts of the world that met on the Internet and went on to get married. In the same way people have started making friends around the globe that share common interests. Now I will discuss about some websites that are extremely popular and have millions of people as their members. Websites providing Social Interaction The recent trend in Internet entertainment is towards websites that allow people to interact with different people across the globe. As we all know Internet removes the barrier of time synchronization hence it enables the people around the world to mingle with each other. Websites like Orkut, Facebook, Netlog, Hi5, and My Space have been the major target of users looking to make new friends and have fun on the Internet. I will only discuss Orkut and Facebook that are the leaders. The strategy of the owners of these website is quite simple, that is enable interaction between people in the circle of law and order and provide entertainment. While this is going on the owners of these websites are not dumb enough to do this without earning money. Every organization that wants to promote their firm through the Internet finds it easy to market themselves through websites that are most frequently visited. These websites that claim to increase a person’s social circle prove a good platform for organizations to market themselves hence these websites earn their owners money as well. Orkut and Facebook both websites in the beginning did not allow the users to register themselves until and unless a current user invited them, this increased their popularity. Due to an unknown reason or to some strategy recently these websites allowed users to register without an invitation. On these types of website a person while making his account completes several tasks of making a profile that includes his or her interests and hobbies. Apart from this loading a single or more than one profile pictures is also allowed, that is being displayed to other users. People can create albums and message each other through writing on their web pages that have been given different attractive names to increase the fun. Facebook gives more options to users and is more interactive than Orkut. Orkut has its own way of running things. Facebook has applications that give people an opportunity to interact in newer and funny ways. The majority members on these types of websites are the young people of the world ranging from ages 15 to 35. Every one tries to make his or her profile different, buy adding unusual things and interests. These websites offer people to become friends with other people those posses’ mutual interests. On these websites people also find old friends that had gone away for certain reasons. A person who has his or her profile on any of this type of website only displays a side of that person that he or she wants to show to everyone, hence this is a drawback of these websites. So the information that the website shows about some one might not be a fact. Apart from this like every thing has a positive and a negative side these websites also. This facility to socialize has been and is being abused in some way or another. Displaying of adult content is quite common, and its not difficult for a child that is less than the of 18 to become the member of these websites as there is not potential restriction. To conclude I would say that these website may be there for socializing but the true picture of a person cant be understood from what he or she is telling you but its your own judgment that tells you how a person is in reality. Mobile Phone Technology Another technology that has given the humans a way to communicate with people all across the globe is a Mobile or Cellular phone. Mobile phones are becoming more and more cheap to maintain and buy as technology is getting sophisticated. Carrying a mobile phone just 10 years back was thought of as a luxury but now it has become the need. A person not carrying a cell phone is thought of as a lower class person who is way behind the fast moving world. Mobile phones or Cell phones as we call them are becoming more and more sophisticated as technology takes big leaps. A modern day cellular phone carries a digital camera, a mp3 player, and different minor utilities that can help a person. This camera can in a cell phone can make movies take pictures apart from this the mp3 player is a good way to listen to music. Any new modern cell phone also carries memory storage that is huge enough to store plenty of music files and pictures or movies. People can also have video conferencing through cell phones, and connect to Internet at cheap rates. Cell phone were originally created for talking to other people while a person is moving that’s why they are also called Mobile phones. Messaging people has also become a trend while using cell phones. It is estimated that more people message each other on cell phones and they avoid to call and talk. It’s surprising why people prefer messaging each other rather than talking when the costs are almost same. Recently the cost of maintaining cell phones have also decreased and it is predicted that the cost will reduce even more in the future. As different technologies cell phones or mobile phones are also subject to abuse and they have a negative side, apart from a positive one. New technologies like blue tooth and Infrared are being used to transfer adult material over cell phones. In the same way blue tooth and infrared devices help in transferring of important data in between people at certain distances. Calling people around the world that is also called communicating internationally has also become cheaper since cell phones or mobile communication started. Cell phones have this ability to connect to computers and can share data with the computers. Cell phones enable people to talk to another people when both of them can hear each other’s voice. As the talk is live hence people can get a more vivid image of the person’s expression on the other side due to changes in his voice amplitude. So this method is only slightly better than socializing through websites. To conclude this topic I would mention that cell phone are a good asset to humans but can be dangerous when used in a negative manner. Conclusion To conclude this paper overall, I would like to mention the importance of both these technologies cell phones and socializing websites. Cell phones have brought a major change in the life style of human beings. No one could have imagined communication would be so easy. Cell phones are adapting to latest technology as fast as they can and after every short time period new cell phones with better technology than before are being launched. On the other hand websites like Face book, my space, Orkut and etc. can be called as a fad and are subject to last for a while but like previous trends will decline some time or another. Though importance of socializing has to be learnt and the best method is to become a member of these websites. I myself am a part of several of these websites and find them good enough to interact with my friends through them. Abuse of these resources is being done but the best way to finish it to take an extreme step or to ignore and neglect it, but one thing that still concerns me are the underage members of these websites a step to save them still has to be taken. Bibliography Editors of BottleTree Books LLC. (June 30, 2007). Facebook Fanatic: Explode Your Popularity, Secure Your Privacy and Buzz Your Band on Facebook. BottleTreeBooks LLC. 340 pages. Odvard Egil Dyrli. (March 1, 2006). ‘Online social networking: sites such as MySpace, Facebook and Xanga are transforming teen cultures’. District Administration. 42 Issue: 3 Page: 99(1). Thomson Gale. Karine Joly. (April 1, 2007). ‘Facebook, MySpace, and Co.: IHEs ponder whether or not to embrace social networking websites’. 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