Social Networking and Its Dangers
Social Networking and Its Dangers
Just when I was about to pick up my pen to finally start on my assignment, the Facebook chat buzzer went off yet again. It was Ivan, a friend I just met at the beach this afternoon playing beach volleyball. We chatted for about twenty minutes before he started asking me a series of personal questions and finally my sexual orientation. I was naïve then and didn’t know what sexual orientation meant, looking back I realized that Ivan was gay wanted to know if I was gay as well. My experience with Ivan made me realized that the Internet makes people less inhibited and more willing to say/do whatever they want. Without the platform of online chatting, Ivan, a shy guy would never have garnered the courage to ask me such personal questions. In recent times, the proliferation of social websites like Facebook has brought social networking to a new level, people have the ability to portray themselves in whichever way they wanted by having a Facebook profile. This trait can be seen in Katie Ellis’s article ‘Be who you want to be: The philosophy of Facebook and the construction of identity’, Katie writes, “I carve out an online identity based on how, and as whom, I want to be perceived in both the online and offline world.” The uprising of social networking websites has also resulted in a rise of cyber-bullying cases and it is fast becoming one of the most common crimes around. Technology without a doubt has enabled mankind to communicate with much greater ease; however, we must never let our guard down when we are online. I remember back in high school, I met Cherry online through a mutual friend. We would talk about everything under the sun on a frequent basis. Soon, I saw her as a close friend that I could share anything with. Being separated by a computer screen, I was not only less shy but also more open minded with our conversation; we would talk about our personal lives, which helped to accelerate our friendship and made us
Just when I was about to pick up my pen to finally start on my assignment, the Facebook chat buzzer went off yet again. It was Ivan, a friend I just met at the beach this afternoon playing beach volleyball. We chatted for about twenty minutes before he started asking me a series of personal questions and finally my sexual orientation. I was naïve then and didn’t know what sexual orientation meant, looking back I realized that Ivan was gay wanted to know if I was gay as well. My experience with Ivan made me realized that the Internet makes people less inhibited and more willing to say/do whatever they want. Without the platform of online chatting, Ivan, a shy guy would never have garnered the courage to ask me such personal questions. In recent times, the proliferation of social websites like Facebook has brought social networking to a new level, people have the ability to portray themselves in whichever way they wanted by having a Facebook profile. This trait can be seen in Katie Ellis’s article ‘Be who you want to be: The philosophy of Facebook and the construction of identity’, Katie writes, “I carve out an online identity based on how, and as whom, I want to be perceived in both the online and offline world.” The uprising of social networking websites has also resulted in a rise of cyber-bullying cases and it is fast becoming one of the most common crimes around. Technology without a doubt has enabled mankind to communicate with much greater ease; however, we must never let our guard down when we are online. I remember back in high school, I met Cherry online through a mutual friend. We would talk about everything under the sun on a frequent basis. Soon, I saw her as a close friend that I could share anything with. Being separated by a computer screen, I was not only less shy but also more open minded with our conversation; we would talk about our personal lives, which helped to accelerate our friendship and made us