Social Network Sites and Online Communities of People - Essay Example

Your full September 21, Social Networks Social network sites (SNSs) are the websites that function like online communities of people who use the internet (Boyd and Ellison). There are a lot of SNSs which allow the internet users to take their membership for free and socialize with other members regarding hobbies, career, religion, fashion, politics etcetera. The users read the profile pages of other members, share views and ideas, give comments and contact them via their profiles. In short, an SNS is a great means of bringing people of same wave length together and socializing with the outside world. People create their profiles which are in fact their identities which may be real or fake. SNSs have redefined identity development in a way that people can now make friends which are even not their type but of the type of the new identity that has been created on the SNS profile. This paper argues that it is important to keep only one identity in the online world in order to realize our inner selves and to keep our offline and online world integrated together. Everything related to our identity affects our agency in our online and offline worlds, be that something as simple as a name. As stated earlier, SNSs enable people to make their profiles with different names and identities in the online world. The connections made with this fake name and identity will be quite different from those made in the offline world. Thus, anybody making a profile in the online world with a fake name will be having two identities; one real that is in the offline world, and the other fake which is in the online world. These two identities or names cannot correlate with each other and thus they are apt to affect people’s agencies in the two worlds. SNSs do not promote making fake profiles; instead, it is upon the individual himself how he makes use of these SNSs. Another fact is that it all depends upon the person himself whether he keeps the two worlds separate or connected together. All depends on his honest or dishonest display of identity and agency. Offline world connections are a part of one’s true identity because he meets people face to face and makes friendships and acquaintances which are aware of his real self. If he takes this identity to the online world and makes use of the SNSs as a support to the offline connections, then he is able to keep the two worlds working in harmony with each other. However, if he creates a separate identity in the online worlds, then the connections with that identity will not correlate with those in the offline world thus keeping the two worlds segregated from each other. We should not perceive our online and offline worlds separately. We should make true profiles with our original identities on the SNSs so that we are able to perceive the two worlds as a single entity and not as two segregated entities. It is not possible in this busy world to run two separate worlds together or maintain different identities in the two worlds; however, we cannot deny the presence of scams and fraudulent activities taking place on the internet which are apt to steal away our identities from the profiles we make online. So, we should only trust authenticated SNSs and make true profiles there with the primary objective to support our offline connections and secondary objective to make new connections. Life will be much easier and sophisticated if we try to perceive the two worlds as a solo unit. Also, an identity becomes disfavored when it is not true. When it gets hacked, it loses its reliability and thus becomes disfavored. Identity thieves are common in the online worlds which steal, misuse, disclose or sell the true identities and thus cheat innocent persons. When an identity is stolen, it loses its credibility and thus is regarded as disapproved because it is not to be relied on for future connections, comments, sharing of information like pictures and files, and other activities of the sort. Disfavored identities must be deactivated from the SNS so that other people who were in the friends’ lists do not get cheated in a similar way because when one identity is stolen on an SNS, all identities which appear as connections of that identity are at stake. So, we can say that when there are so many advantages and ethical issues related to true identities online, there are some disadvantages too. Disfavored identities also affect our sense of self badly because one never wants to feel like disfavored or disapproved whether in the online world or offline. Disfavored identities are a setback for honest individuals but it should be treated in the same way as disapproval is encountered in the offline world. Moreover, the active creation of an online identity contributes to a full realization of True Self. Man is a social animal. But as lives have become busier, one gets little time to meet face-to-face with relatives, old friends, classmates and even neighbors. Online SNSs save time as one can always catch up with others whenever one wants. People find new friends who share common interests. They learn about different cultures and languages, share photo albums, let others view their videos and have a chat session. Companies use online social networks for advertisements. When there are so many uses of SNSs, they have finally succeeded in enabling man realizing his true self as he is always connected to his relations and gets to know how much other connections value or devalue him. SNSs help us to better understand other people because we can always know how they behave with other connections in their lives. We can always enter each others’ profiles and friends’ lists, and get to better know each other and also ourselves. When they use true identities, SNSs engage users in finding old friends, making new ones, sharing views and ideas. People let their friends view their photo albums and get comments on them. They share videos relating to their interests, pets, members of family, and get responses from their friends. They chat with their online friends through the chat application, can play games with friends, take online personality tests and get their results there and then and publish them on their profile. They can poke their friends, write on their wall, and view their friends’ friends so that they can enlarge their circle of socializing. They can send invitations to their old or new friends to join the SNS, and if they accept it, they can view their profiles and get connected with them for the rest of their lives no matter in what part of the world they live in. In short, once you are on an SNS, you get a sense of belonging to the world. You feel like integrating your own self and realizing your own likes and dislikes as well us understanding others’ personalities too. Thus, SNSs offer us a place where we can integrate ourselves very smartly. In short, the argument settles on the point that since covering is very much common on SNSs because there are many a people who come with fake identities trying to attract connections, hence SNSs should be used as an enhancement of our online worlds and should avoid making fake identities. Boys appear as girls and vice versa to become friends with the opposite sex pretending to be of the same sex. Tragedy is that there is no authentication process that could obstruct fake profiles from being created on the SNSs thus covering becomes much frequent. However, if one uses SNSs with the primary objective only, that is to support offline connections, then one can save oneself from fake profiles to a great extent. Works Cited Boyd, Danah M., and Nicole B. Ellison. “Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 13.1(2007), article 11. . Read More