Social Networking Sites - Essay Example

Face to face meetings, especially for the first time, are usually exciting events. One gets to scrutinize a new acquaintance physically and gauge his or her intelligence through conversations. Almost immediately, one can form an impression of the other, and this may remain unless proven otherwise in the next meetings. A lot depends on the spontaneity of a person – how quick his or her wit is, how personable he or she is, and how one’s sense of humor clicks with another’s. Glimpses of one’s personality shines through except for people who have put up a lot of defensive walls around themselves.

For these people, it may be more challenging to see through their real selves. Getting into a social networking site such as Tagged to meet new people online offers a different scenario. One creates his or her own profile, putting in information he chooses to share, lay it out in a design he or she prefers, and adds a profile picture, or more for his or her picture gallery. Then a choice to set this profile in private or to be seen publicly is made by the user. The profile picture is available for public viewing, and becomes a choice in a buffet of new prospects to be chosen as contacts or “friends” by other members.

If someone likes to include another in his friends’ list, then he makes an effort to ask that person if he or she can be added as “friend”, and upon acceptance, they become part of each other’s online contact list. It is up to them to maintain communication either by sending messages, picture tags or add comments (either text or picture or video) in one’s profile. They may also opt to communicate outside the site by exchanging contact details or chatting in another messaging system like Yahoo Messenger or MSN Instant Messaging.

Here, they may restrict their communication to online chat or see each other by webcam or actually meet in person. It is really up to the individuals how they want