Social Media on Society

Facebook the world.
Since the beginning social networking sites, like Facebook has attracted several types of users, and in most cases, these people have incorporated these websites into their daily practices. While some sites support existing relationships, others help creating new relationships in different interests such as political views, religious, activities or even just gaming! While supporting Facebook on society is beneficial, one can find several factors that go against it, such as cyber bulling. Indeed, social networking provides society a lot of good tools, nonetheless people have taken social networking for granted.
One of the main reasons and most popular because people use social networking sites is to keep in touch with friends and relatives while they are away. It aids the fact that several people who live away from their home receive continuous support from friends and people they communicate through Internet. According to a website article (ProCon.org, Page 2), 60 million of Americans received assistance with major life issues from people on their social network. “These people said social networking sites helped them connect with friends and experts who assisted on their decisions” (ProCon.org, Page 2). With the technology developed by social networking, long distance communication has become much simpler and accessible to the average person; It has facilitated users to keep up with the face-to-face relationship with their friends and relatives. Not only does it facilitate the “virtual” contact between its users, but also it can be a technique to arrange personal meetings for different purposes.
Taking into account the features social networking offers, it is also considered as a very potential tool that has even substitute traditional methods of communication. It has helped people getting to know deeper statistics about certain general interest topics such as politics. One day before the last US presidential election, the Democratic candidate had more followers than the Republican candidate in most of the social networking sites such as Facebook, My space and Twitter (ProCon.org, Page 2 & 3). I believe that since the majority of people that join social networking sites are a young crowd, their decisions and opinions have a strong influence and have a very solid word out in the world referring to any topic, in this case political.
When the Internet boom started years ago, many schools considered the Internet a “distraction” that was not really necessary. Beginning with scholars, social networking has been playing a very significant system on today’s education. Parents have claimed that their children have improved their writing, reading and conflict resolution skills, and learned how to express themselves better, and meet new students around the world (Cassel, Page1)( Procon.org, Page 2). By expanding the sources of information and feedback students have the ability of gathering more information and learn more about their interests. The fact that is very easy to communicate with their classmates through any chat or website makes their education fun and interactive. Incorporating social networking as a tool of learning, schools and different institutes have developed “safety policies” that protect users from any harm through Internet.
Using social networking to enlarge your business opportunities is a great tool mostly used by young professionals. Getting into an unknown world in your career, young professionals see social networking as a guide and a way of easily targeting their interest in a professional level. Searching for a job or starting your own business requires exposing those services to several people in order to have success. With social networking professionals are a click away of letting the world know who they are and their services. It’s easier to tell your abilities to a large “virtual” group of people once, than having to tell capabilities one hundred times individually. It’s time consuming, and a time is money. Because of that and other reasons, social networking has been used as an advertisement method. Big, medium and small size companies are utilizing social networking to deliver to consumers their product and facilitate the access for further information about their services (Accardi, Page 20). Besides companies, people are taking advantage of the “marketplace” offered by social websites to advertise personal items and make a profit.
Just like everything, social networking has its down side as well. It can influence people, especially teenagers, in a negative and/or destructive way. An average of time spent on social networking is 9 hours per day, which could be applied to more productive activities such as sports, and education (ProCon.org, Page 1). Over-communication drives users to the release of confidential and personal information that can be easily taken and manipulated by anyone. By displaying personal information opens doors to sexual predators, identity thieves, and cyber-bullying which can affect society in many aspects. “Department of Defense is considering a ban on social networking sites because of concerns over security threats and potential computer viruses” (ProCon.org, Page 2). Even the government with all its security systems, has taken serious actions regarding social networking with their employees, and members to avoid any leak of information. Furthermore, companies are adopting this system of social networks to either recruit people or firing current employees.
Social networking is also highlighted by the fact of joining groups of common interest. However, when people limit themselves to their interests only, they are preventing themselves of growth (Pagliarini, Page 1). Limiting yourself from acknowledging information in certain topics or groups could also isolate you from society that could benefit you intellectually and professionally. Another harmful aspect of social networking is that it could affect your health, specially children’s brain development as well as mental disorders. “My fear is that these technologies are infantilizing the brain into the state of small children who are attracted by buzzing noises and bright lights, who have a small attention span and who live for the moment” (Cassel, Page 1). It has also been stated that the personal contact with people is healthier that looking at a screen. Having more direct contact with the world also benefits the quality of relationships we develop. Sometimes people focus more in the virtual method of networking, rather than the “non-virtual” and it separates people from actual physical networks that could end up in a good personal or business relationship.
Social networking has an enormous impact on today’s society. Many believe that social networking is beneficial, others don’t. Having the opportunity to investigate more into social networking brought up to my attention that it can be very beneficial as long as we can control the web and the web doesn’t control us. The power of social networking is very capable of putting companies on top of the list, or leaving people out in the streets without a job. The ability of shorten distances between families and friends has been the number one use of social networking, unfortunately many individuals take advantage of social networking and start persecuting innocent people and creating harm to society. The benefits provided by social networking have made society and individuals become more productive and updated with today’s world technology. It’s a magnificent tool with a lot of good outcomes, a tool that in some cases is very costly for the wellness of society.

Bibliography
Cassel, David. http://tech.blorge.com/Structure:%20/2007/08/07/schoolboards-net-dangers-over-rated-bring-social-networks-to-school/. 07 August 2007. 14 September 2010.
Pagliarini, Robert. www.moneywatch.bnet.com. 6 April 2009. 28 September 2010 .
ProCon.org. "Social Networking ProCon.org." 24 Septemeber 2010. Social Networking ProCon.org. 28 September 2010.

Bibliography: Cassel, David. http://tech.blorge.com/Structure:%20/2007/08/07/schoolboards-net-dangers-over-rated-bring-social-networks-to-school/. 07 August 2007. 14 September 2010. Pagliarini, Robert. www.moneywatch.bnet.com. 6 April 2009. 28 September 2010 . ProCon.org. "Social Networking ProCon.org." 24 Septemeber 2010. Social Networking ProCon.org. 28 September 2010.