Impact of Social Networking To Society - Research Paper Example

Impact of Social Networking To Society Social networks are differentiated not only because they provide a mode of interaction for fun and entertainment to their users, but rather they facilitate clients to have a social circle that suits them. The social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and the like provide a large number of options along with the chat facilities. These options let the user keep updated with the trend of their preference while also interacting among themselves and with the producers of these products. This forms a socializing base among people with a common interest, connecting them through a social front; that is their preferred brand. However, the main purpose of their creation is not advantageous to the "latent ties" (Haythornthwaite, 2005) which shapes upon some offline connection. Visitors are not essentially "associating"; that is trying to meet up new people; in fact, they are mainly talking among people who already have are a part of their widespread communal involvement. To accentuate this expressed societal association as a vital systematic characteristic of these places, societal network sites (SNS) is the main word assigned to these sites. This paper discusses the The conception of chitchat space broadens additionally to further modus operandi; for example web based discussion service. Once one arrives at the site, it is compulsory to register as a user and they are able to choose to roll for a description on the site to initiate conversation. One can, in addition, presently sign in like a visitor and plainly type in a moniker to start their expedition. Further feature may additionally be presented if one signs up for a description, such as right of entry to the round-table. Though, not each and every web based chitchat services have round-table. Advantages and Disadvantages of Communicating in Public Sphere Online communication is employed for several reasons. People use it as a medium to connect with far away and distant friends, family and relatives. It makes them feel close to them so they use it on a daily basis or even several times a day. It costs less than telephone or SMS facilities (Boyd & Ellison 2007). People may be stuck at home due to several reasons and may become a victim of boredom. Facebook and Twitter for instance connects people who know each other. Facebook Facebook is certainly the main trendy societal arrangement with a 55% incursion. One in every seven minutes exhausted online are spent on Facebook page, and three quarters of the time spent on societal connection is on Facebook.  Anonymous chatting is also common among people on these sites. It is therefore very connective. They make new friends and gain from their culture and experiences. It makes the world shrink into a global village where anyone can start conversing with someone that shares their common interests. Social Websites and software like Facebook and Twitter are also used officially to communicate and share information. It helps connect remote employees, to interact with experts sitting in head offices or different parts of the globe, to gain expert advice from their expertise and to get access to information easily over the web. Academically, chat sessions are used while delivering lectures or entertaining queries. It is not a compulsion to go for a formal learning experience during chat. One can opt to learn a new language or learn something new about a culture by interacting with the members of that community using social networking web-based tools. Facebook also offers third party techniques to keep contacts connected like games ranging from sending pokes in the form of notifications to scoring by achieving milestones in an online game. As with other things in life, online communication comes with its own set of advantages and disadvantages. One of the major advantages of online communication is that it bridges the gap in real time. People interact online in real time. The basic concept behind such a communication is to communicate with a person who is available at the other end and will be responding to queries on instant notice. As compared to the electronic mail medium, that promotes synchronous communication, one is never aware of the availability of the recipient. So online chat basically mimics conversing on a phone absent voice, but replaced with textual communication. People tend to communicate via chat when they cannot verbally communicate due to timing issue, high cost attributable or event constraint. Also people, who cannot afford to pay for a proper bandwidth, can communicate in a comparatively cheaper and effective way. For newbie, the online chat opens doors to learning new cultures, traditions and aspirations. They interact out of curiosity and increase their knowledge of far off lands, people and their beliefs by communicating with them. It is of great interest to know that people of all age groups tend to find the facts and new information fascinating and very useful. They employ chat as the medium of communication and learning. Social networking tools are also used in online shopping these days, or to place a query regarding a product that is featured on a website. The consultants are usually online to provide details required and assist clients in making a choice or satisfying them about a product. For instance, the Nike, Adidas, Gucci, Blackberry and many other Facebook pages provide information about their products and range, at times with the prices and order placing procedures. It also provides the companies with the pages on the feedback from their clients about their products (Biagi, 2011). Facebook has provided means for young entrepreneurs to create their own page and market their products online. People are given a chance to do online shopping even for developing nations where online shopping is still not made available because, old but established businessmen prefer tradition ways and are not technologically in touch to get brilliant ideas. Google+ is a speedy increasing societal group, and it is the lone set-up connection to have a mark-up of 25 million novel clients in fewer than single month (Kord, 2008). Facebook serves as a medium for connecting socially with a broad network and at the same time it tries to preserve identities. People are so used to using Facebook in their daily lives for connecting that when they feel lonely or wish to catch up with their friends and family, they visit online on Facebook or go and read their walls and at times leave messages. They also see videos and pictures to see what their friends and family are up to and it makes them happy to know they are having fun in their lives. Despite the many advantages on social media communication, there seems to be a harbinger of bad news if these facilities are not properly used. The first drawback of social networking is that it lures people to be who they are not. It thrills them to define a character and personality of their own that they actually lack or never intend to be and show it to some anonymous person they interact virtually with. Basically the level of anonymity provided in the chat software and social networking websites decides to what level people can misuse chatting sessions. It is not uncommon to report fraud, illegal use, abuse and even blackmailing during virtual relationships. Since virtual socialization anonymously encourages people to hide their true identities, people easily fall a victim to such disadvantages. Maturity level of the person using chats is also very Important (Dvorak, Pirillo and Taylor, 2004) One negative trait of such a wall concept is portraying what you one is not. People tend to write things on their statuses just to attract attention and seldom care if things are actually that way or not. This misleads one to think about the actual condition of their friends and family and a struggle starts to build up a mechanism and maintain eye catching witty statuses. Fake profiles on Facebook are also one reason one would wish to avoid making friends. People tend to make fake identities just to intrude into someone’s life or gain sensitive information. Another flaw is that the page concept brings in is the possibility of easy misuse by publishing content that might hurt feelings of a sect, defame a personality or hurt the status of a business. Facebook decision of removal of such contents fails to be objective and sometimes the issue gets severe enough that authorities have to ban the site in their countries to protect public from getting hurt. This gives means of staying busy and feel connected at the same moment. One flaw of online social community Facebook is that accounts can be hacked easily and personal information is compromised. Since Facebook allows rich media content upload as well, so usually if an account is hacked, the entire sensitive data of user is at risk. Twitter As anticipated, micro blogging has as well expanded in status. Twitter is, evidently, the major fashionable micro blogging spot – in October 2011, it was exercised by a propos of 10% of Internet client globally (Ting, Hong and Wang, 2011). The concept of Twitter is well suited to meet the demands and needs of the fast pace of life we have. People feel connected by updating status or sharing links and the like. It does not contain support for multimedia as its aim is to make a light weight application on which people can stay connected together by following one another. Privacy is granted by allowing the followed person to select who can follow or not follow them. Another positive aspect of this application is that it limits the count of characters that can be used as a status. So Twitter users can read information they are interested in quickly, as it will not require much time. People share information more, rather than attractive statuses in Twitter. Due to this reason a lot of people follow on Twitter for information exchange purpose that is not usually personal for general public. Celebrities post information about their ventures and private and fans follow them to get quick updates. The short comings of Twitter include lack of communication mini tools (Hinchcliffe, & Kim, 2012). Only status updates are the medium for communication and tweeting on one another’s status is the only medium to stay connected. One has to be a staunch follower if they wish to get updated and lack of details might turn out to be frustrating sometimes. There is also a possibility that statuses might be misunderstood or not clearly stated due to limitation in character count. It is of utmost importance that people realize their moral and ethical duties and are mature enough to understand their responsibilities when they opt for a chat session. They should try to build a community of trust and hope for learning and helping others, rather than making it a place where people end up being hurt. Online communication mediums have become a widely acceptable technique and are used mostly for better reasons than gossiping. One should work to promote such a culture. This is the purpose for which social networking was created and efforts to sabotage this purpose should be dismissed. References Boyd, M., & Ellison, B. (2007). Societal network sites: Definition, history, & scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), article 11. Dvorak, J., Pirillo, C., & Taylor, W. (2004). Online!: The Book. New Jersey: Prentice Hall/PTR. Haythornthwaite, C. (2005). Societal Networks & Internet Connectivity Effects. Information, Communication & Society, 8 (2), 125-147 Hinchcliffe, D. & Kim, P. (2012). Social Business By Design: Transformative Social Media Strategies for the Connected Company. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons Kord, J. I. (2008). Understanding the Facebook Generation: A study of the relationship between online social networking and academic and social integration and intentions to re-enroll. ProQuest. Ting, H., Hong, P., & Wang, L. (2011). Social Network Mining, Analysis and Research Trends: Techniques and Applications. Information Science Reference. Biagi, S. (2011). Media Impact: An Introduction to Mass Media. Connecticut: Cengage Learning Read More