Thursday, March 19, 2009

Social Networking: Pros and Cons

Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn—society is more and more connected online, and less and less connected in real life. I'm the pot calling the kettle black though. I have a Facebook account, I "tweet" on a regular basis as a journalism student, and I’m LinkedIn in order to ensure gainful employment post graduation in May. I think what we need to realize is that social networking has both its pros and cons.

In the reading, “Social Networking Offers Free Marketing” we see that these type of sites are above all things—free. Accessibility is a reason why everyone turns to these sites--no membership fees and an offering of infinite web connections. As a small business owner, or large business owner for that matter, wouldn’t you agree that you are crazy not to be on these sites? They’re free and have the most web traffic of any website out there. Sounds like a great business marketing plan to me.

But with all good things, there are the negatives. Personally, I feel that people lose touch with everyday person-to-person interaction. Have you noticed that you text or Facebook message someone instead of picking up the phone to call them? Have you noticed that you find out new information about some of your friends through Facebook? Maybe or maybe not--but it’s definitely happening. And, as we saw in the MySpace suicide incident and the Facebook bullying, social interactions online are not completely harm-free. If anything, people are more inclined to be more forward and malicious because there isn’t a reaction from the person in front of you.

Now I turn to you—social networking: love it, hate it, or a little bit of both?

32 comments:

  1. I will defiantly agree that since the creation of Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace many of us are learning what our friends are up too without coming into direct contact with them. I lie if I said I did not text more then I call these days. To hit a few keys on the phone when asking a simple question you are protecting yourself from needing to get into a deep conversation. I do not feel as though this is the right thing to become attached too. I feel that face to face talks will always be the best form of communication but with all these new technologies face to face time becomes limited.

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  2. I agree with what you both have said. Face to face communication is necessary when it comes to dealing with personal issues or issues that are going to affect you, someone else or even your future. It would be pretty informal to tell your future employee "by the way the best way to get in touch with me is though text message or facebook." With that said however, I have never encountered a problem with the SNS that I am a member of and my social interactions with friends and family. I think its all about being able to balance online life with real world life.

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  4. To me, social networking has both pros and cons. I totally agree with what you have said. There are more and more people updating their status on facebook more frequently than they actually do so to their friends. The good thing is as soon as you update your status, everyone on your friend-list will be informed. Assuming that you want to inform all of your friend something but you are too lazy to call them individually, it can be a good thing because facebook helps you to do so. The convenience, however, always accompanies privacy issues and also less interpersonal, face-to-face interactions. Some people today, I believe, would rather spend hours facebooking or blogging, instead of chatting with friends in person. As what we have learned in the class, social networking online can be a bridge, as well as a barrier. As social networking online gradually becomes a routine in everyone's daily life, the dual roles it plays, both as a bridge and a barrier, would definitely be more conspicuous and cannot be avoided.

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  5. Social Networks are a tool and in this web 2.0 culture we are still discovering many new uses for the tool. These sites serve as a directory for all of the contacts you have created for your life, in an internet presence phone book. In the evening lecture the speaker even explained how his social networking helped him find a job quickly because so many people were able to find out instantly at their own leisure. Also mentioned were having a online presence as a company. You can share media and advertise events easily as well, and the bounds are endless. I cannot find a reason to believe that the tool itself provides harm, but rather the people that use the tool for the wrong reasons make it harmful.

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  6. Are social networking sites making us less social, or are people who would otherwise be too lazy to maintain personal relationships using it as a crutch? It's probably a mixture of both, but in the case of the second, this is not necessarily a bad thing. People nowadays can be marginally social with the 100 or so other people they would never talk to if social networking sites did not exist. Because we have very sporadic or only online communications with these people, there is an illusion that we're relying on it more, when in fact we may just be keeping in better contact-- if only online, with they myriad friends we would ignore if we didn't have online networking sites.

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  7. I definitely agree with you on this. Thankfully, I haven't had the 'I found out ____ via Facebook' thing happen too much, maybe once or twice, but I do see a tendency these days to text over call. Then again, I'm guilty of this too, but it isn't so much a 'I don't want to actually talk' as a 'It's cheaper and faster to send a text and I just need to know what time we're meeting for dinner' type of thing. I certainly think our use of the internet and social networking sites contributes to the instant gratification we all hold so near and dear and that that plays a big role in our texting vs talking decisions. The only SNS that I'm a part of is Facebook and I only use it when I get a Facebook email saying 'so and so wrote on your wall/messaged you/commented on your picture.' I also think Ben's post above makes a very good point. I went abroad last semester and while I feel bad for having pretty sparse communication with some of the Japanese friends I made, I know that if we didn't have Facebook, we wouldn't even be communicating this much.

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  8. I agree that our society has less person-to-person interaction. I recently found out that someone I went to school with when I was younger was in a car accident and is in the hospital via Facebook. Instead of finding things out from people we find out important and personal information, such as, engagements or deaths from social websites like Facebook. I think social networking websites are a good way to get information to a large group of people, but it’s so impersonal that obtaining information this way is slightly upsetting. I use social networking sites mainly to keep in touch with family overseas and friends that are far away. I am able to communicate with them and see what they are up to, so we don’t become disconnected. I think it’s obviously up to people to use social networking sites “appropriately”, but it’s hard to know the exact boundaries.

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  9. I have a love hate relationship with facebook. I love it because it allows me to communicate with people in a way that seems safe to me. I also hate it however because I realize that this more convinient and safe way of communicating is keeping me from more intimate relaitonships with some people. Some of the "freinds" I have on facebook are people that I haven't seen or spoken to in years and probably wouldn't if not for Facebook. On the other hand, I have relatives, very strange I know, as "friends" who might actually call to talk to me if it were not for
    Facebook. I feel like the site gives people a sense of intimacy, this Spybook is used to see what "friends" are up to without even having to speak to them. This may bring some together, but it is also being used to replace potential intimate relationships with surface ones.

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  10. It is also strange that I am now keeping in touch with relatives on a site that is used for business networking and product marketing. It makes me think about how impersonal everything has become.

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  11. I think that it's way to easy to blame social networking sites for people acting impersonal toward the rest of society. I know people who get their information about others through Facebook, but generally it's about people that they wouldn't talk to/know anything about if it wasn't for facebook. I feel like the people that you want to still have a relationship with, you find out about them from face-to-face conversation. Most of the "friendships" on facebook are meaningless anyway.

    And I also count myself as someone who texts more often than calling. But I find texting to be much more convenient than calling. Who wants to have a 5 minute conversation with someone just to find out one piece of information. I'll gladly text to avoid unnecessary chats.

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  12. I’m not a huge fan of networking sites. While I find them useful every now and again for contacting relatives (like EScott said), overall they are a distraction from the real world interaction. I would rather talk on the phone, or even better, in person any day of the week than through facebooking, texting or any other computerized form of interaction. I feel that social networking sites, like Facebook or MySpace, are having a greater negative impact on person to person interaction than I think the majority of us choose to acknowledge or are even aware of. I believe that the generations (particularly children) that are currently growing up during this explosion of social-networking sites and the generations to come are becoming greatly disadvantaged. Many children are no longer learning the necessary social norms because of these online forms of communication. I think it’s slowly impairing young children’s ability to interact with others in the more traditional ways…

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  13. Facebook serves as a great distraction, but other than that its expanding purpose annoys me. A few months after being accepted to Carolina, a friend told me about a site you could use to keep in touch with friends in other colleges and to communicate with new friends at school. I joined Facebook right away thinking it was some sort of right of passage into the college world. For the first year here it was really helpful and a good tool to share updates and pictures with friends in different schools. By sophomore year though high schoolers started being able to join and slowly Facebook lost its appeal (how I saw it was that now losers doing nothing with their lives were invading this "intellectual" space). Now senior year, peoples' grandparents are on Facebook and quite frankly it’s creepy and has lost all its appeal. There was a reason I was never a MySpace junkie and now Facebook is becoming more similar to its competitor. I'm not a fan of networking sites. It seems the result is less human interaction, stalking, and many "friends" you never even acknowledge in public.

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  14. I do not like social networking sites. It is obvious that people are moving away from person to person networking. Instead they are relying on the internet and the digital world to network with people. I feel that everyone should have real world networking skills, because those are the skills you need to get a job in most fields. Without those skills, how would a person be able to get a job interview and experience potential job growth. I can see the convenience of social networking sites, but I believe people should still focus most of their interactions face to face. Social networking sites can also affect a person’s social skills because they are doing their communication behind a computer screen. Another thing with social networking sites is that parents and relatives are getting accounts. I think this is stupid because it is moving families further away from real world interactions. I talk to my parents and relatives on the phone and I feel that is the most appropriate way to talk to my family. In general, social network sites are convenient but they are making interactions between people very informal.

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  15. I would agree that they have a negative impact on human interaction but it is because SNS are a part of the IT advances that are making it more convenient to sit at home and text, email, message someone instead of calling them or actually seeing them to have a conversation. I have learned about new information of my 'friends' on facebook but when that occurs it is usually only some acquaintance of mine. I've never learned something new about my friends that I actually talk to a lot in real life through facebook besides music tastes. Though I can see the appeal of Facebook and Myspace, I just cannot grasp the point of twitter. It is like a SNS for the lazy blogger. Why do people like it?

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  16. I agree to a certain extent that social networking sites do take away from human interaction because most of the communication is done without actually having face to face interactions, however it does enable us to easily stay in touch. It is a slippery slope, because we now have the technology to stay in touch with friends and family who may live far away, but we are taking out an essential part of human interaction. Imagine what it would be like if all of our interactions utilized social networking sites. I am not trying to say that that will ever happen, but I think that technology is pushing society closer towards that extreme. I do have facebook and enjoy the ability to stay in touch with friends and family, but I do also see the negative aspects of social networking sites. I would say that for most things, social networking sites included, moderation should be stressed.

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  17. I think that overall, social networking does more help than harm, but of course, you have to make a personal choice to stay moderate about them. As with anything, moderation keeps it refreshing and useful and I think especially with these sites, its easy to "lose sight" of what you are using it for. I get on Facebook a pretty good amount, but try to monitor my time on it considering it is really easy to spend hours and hours on it. My original reluctance to the Facebook was that I would spend too much time on it, and inevitably, I do. But alas, you are a loser if you aren't on facebook! haha. More seriously though, it is a great way to organize your social life and can be very useful in staying in contact with people and trying to remain "in the know" about things. So overall, I think social networking sites are great as long as people don't base their lives around them and that they are used just for what they are: to network socially, not stalk or anything like that.

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  18. I think it is fair to say that everyone has had or at least knows someone that has had both positive and negative events take place in their life because of social networking sites. Though I will be first to admit that I feel completely addicted to facebook sometimes, I do think it use extremely useful. Not only are these sites useful, but also practical in today's fast-pace, high-tech environment. The trade-off for this is that there are obviously severe cons associated with networking sites. This is normal though; nothing as useful as a social networking site will ever come without a price or trade-off -- life just isn't that simple and everyone should be smart enough to know this by now.

    Obvious pros that I have experienced from these sites are probably the same that most of you have had; connecting with old friends, staying in touch with friends that are studying abroad, etc. I know these benefits just as well as the next person.

    The cons of these sites do seem just as limitless as the pros though. I have even had a friend who's picture was used on a networking site, by someone posing as her, promising explicit things and actually providing her real contact information. This is one of those extreme consequences of sites like this, and the problem that this also brings up is the idea of how laws are having a hard time keeping up with the internet. My friend actually spoke with lawyer only to find out that technically, no laws were broken in her case and there was nothing she could do other than hope the asshole found a conscience.

    However, like I said in a comment on a different post, the negative activity on these sites seems to be greatly outnumbered by both positive and/or useless activity. Because of this, I think social networking sites are one of the most important and possibly influential things that have come with the evolution of the internet.

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  19. i think the best part of social network sites is their ability to keep you in contact withe people you don't see on a regular basis. although facebook profiles don't tell (most of our) life stories, they do allow people to get a somewhat interactive peak into our friends' and families' lives. wonder how someone looks after 4 years apart--just look on facebook and you can also check out his relationship status, friends, and job info.

    i think the downside though is we can often infer things from social networking sites that aren't true. yes these sites have details about our lives, but they're very superficial, without context or explanation. i read how college counseling surfaces are having to adjust to facebook because of the psychological stresses they put on students, using them to read too much into other people's lives. i think it's a tricky balance to maintain sometimes.

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  20. I totally agree with your pros and cons. I love social networks because it keeps me up to date will all my friends and family all over, even in Nigeria. I don't think I would be able to communicate with them as much without it. Social networks are all about what you use them for and how you present yourself. I think you should present yourself in a way you see fit and should not be able to let others define you or how you should be

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  21. Social networking definitely has its pros but I think like other networking sites, they make people more likely to avoid face-to-face contact.
    I was looking up some background info on an employer on LinkedIn, and it was kind of surprising to see that I could see all of the employer's information even when I was not a registered member. And even if someone is registered, that of course does not mean that he/she has only good intentions in accessing someone's career info...More and more, these networking sites seem to feel necessary because practically everyone is on them but simultaneously, they are often just...creepy.

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  22. For the most part I don't spent a lot of time on social networking sites because of the fact that I think it is way too impersonal and people rely on it way to much for personal interactions. I think so much time is wasted on facebook while other productive things could be done. I have facebook but only get on when someone sends a message because I know people rely on it so much. I dont have myspace and dont twitter and I dont think that hinders my social networking in real life at all. Overall, I think these sites can be good for some people but that they are very unnecessary.

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  23. When I was growing up, I would spend hours and hours talking to my friends on the phone. Now, I prefer not to answer the phone if I know I will have to talk to the person for an extended period of time. It sounds bad, I know, but who has the time anymore? Being on Facebook has helped me with this problem, I can get updates on my friend's lives, send them Bday wishes, and see their pictures from their most recent vacation or celebration. I find the cases where Facebook has caused more harm than help few and far between. If I didnt have facebook, I wouldnt be able keep in touch with 95% of the people that I know.

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  24. Although there are plenty of negative aspects of these social networking sites, most lie within the hands of the user. Of course, there are exceptions that have been mentioned on this site…people misusing others’ photos and personal information to harm them. Many of these detrimental consequences of the sites, however, involve individuals’ inability to practice self-control. While many relationships become less personable and lose intimacy that is crucial to the depth of these relationships, it is also something that is in the hands of those involved in these friendships. I believe that people should be held personally responsible for the deterioration of such relationships since they are in total control of limiting their use of social networking sites. People are so quick to blame these sites, even if that was not the intention of these sites. There will always be ways to abuse such technology, so it is more of matter of the users’ discipline than it is the responsibility of the individuals that run these sites.

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  25. Though it may appear that there is a new, surface-level communication that is standard for online social networking interactions, but I beg to argue that ANY communication is better than none at all! If it weren't for facebook, my high school friends would be merely imprints in my memories. Through facebook, I can send them short and sweet messages saying how much I miss them and our time together.

    Like all things in life, though, there is a happy medium. Too much of anything can be a problem... and definitely too much facebook or myspace is a problem. If we find ourselves ONLY using facebook as a means of communication, then I think we've encountered a serious issue. If we use it a few times a day, though, and balance it with other forms of communication, I see nothing wrong with its use.

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  26. I have to say that social networking does have its pros and cons. On the one hand, like said in the article it does decrease the amount of face to face interaction, but at the same time what about all the people I know who do not live close to me? One of my best friends moved to Virginia, and the only way to really keep in touch with her is through the Internet. Yes I could call, but these days most plans have minimal minutes on it, and I'm sorry I'm not paying $100/month for unlimited minutes. I would rather go the cheap route. Not to mention the fact that you can't just pick up the phone and call someone while in class. You can, however, text, or if you have your computer, IM or message someone. Another example is that I have relationships with people I met while abroad, and no one lives near me, so the Internet is our way of keeping in touch and knowing what's going on in each others lives.

    For another negative, I agree that while it helps with long distance relationships/friendships, it does not help with the people who do live near you. One of my closest friends will NOT pick up the phone if you call her, even if she's available and we've been texting. She says she does not like to talk on the phone, which doesn't make much sense to me. It sucks that I know she is available but she doesn't pick up my calls. I don't know, I guess it really just depends, and my situation might be unique to most other peoples.

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  27. In my response I wish to focus on my feelings of facebook, because it's the only "social networking" site that I use or am deeply familiar with. I understand how the others work, but nothing chimes "social" nor "networking" quite like facebook. Before I came to college I thought the idea of facebook was pretty cool: an internet site that has profiles of everyone at your college that serves as a way to keep up with friends etc. If only facebook had stayed like this... but it has gone through more transformations in the last four years than anyone could imagine.

    To me, it's no longer about networking and more about "social". Most of the time you walk through the library and people are just wasting away browsing at pictures or playing some stupid game application. It's really lost site of the true reason it began: and that is to keep people in touch and to allow the networking. Now while this still goes on, and I'm sure a lot of people do use facebook for it's networking utility, I'm just not as big of as fan.

    Social networking sites are what's "cool" and is this day and age that equals money, and lots of money from all the traffic that see the advertisements. The business of social networking is huge, but this potential disrupts the core ideals that these "networking" sites were created upon.

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  28. With a continual move further into the digital age, i feel as if social networking sites have come to age and are the next big thing. Obviously it takes away from person to person contact, however, it also opens up new ways for distant relatives to begin to connect with one another. Also, the economic positives opened up by these new social networking sites clearly is beneficial in not only helping businesses hire new employees, but at the same time a huge venue for advertising.

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  29. Yes, I am on Facebook; but, no, I do not think that it has taken away from my everyday, face-to-face interaction with my friends and family. For those people that I truly care about and are involved in my everyday life, I don't find out personal information about them via Facebook. I do recognize the harmful aspects of such social networking sites like Facebook, but if everybody could just control themselves and maintain a normal lifestyle, I think they are more than appropriate and beneficial in our technologically advanced society. I have found through my experience with Facebook that I am able to keep in much better touch with those people that I don't get to see frequently. I can track what they've been up to via their new photo albums, wall posts etc., but that only spurs me to pick up the phone to call them and hear for myself. I have found Facebook to be very useful in "networking" with people in order to help with career paths, living accomodations etc. There are so many people that I am "friends" with on Facebook that I would not feel comfortable picking up the phone and calling to ask for advice or answer questions for me, but with Facebook, I have the option to send a message and develop that relationship, sometimes to the point where we eventually become "phone buddies". I know all of this sounds very simple, but that is my life on Facebook; I guess I haven't gotten obsessed with it to really recognize the potential negative aspects that accompany such social networking sites.

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  31. Much like Austin, I am not very familiar with social networking sites besides Facebook. I think that Facebook is largely a waste of time, and from what I can tell Twitter is even more so. Beyond the ability to broaden your network of friends and acquaintances I find little to no value in tagging pictures, setting your 'status', Twittering (or whatever the made-up verb may be), or silently stalking other people from behind the security blanket of your own computer screen.
    Just as digital photograph repositories such as Flickr have diluted the value of photography (a picture used to be worth a thousand words), so have social networking sites diluted the value of personal contacts. I don't think I know a single person under 35 who still uses an old-fashioned paper address book, and while this is not necessarily a bad thing, it brings to mind questions regarding the safety and reliability of computers. I, for one, would be completely cut off from the world if my GMail or Blackberry were to suddenly crash and delete all of my contacts.
    Now it may be hypocritical of me to suggest that we revert back to the all but lost art of hand-writing our contacts, etc. into hardcopy form, but I do think that we as a society need to somehow become less dependent on the forces of Facebook, Twitter, etc. and put more emphasis on a smile, a handshake, and a meaningful face-to-face conversation. Without preserving the old nuances of human interaction I think our generation risks being labeled (especially in fields such as business) as uninterested and insincere computer zombies by older generations.

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  32. Social networks can be valuable in keeping in touch with others from distances, but they do not replace face-to-face, or even voice interaction. Without realizing it, those who rely on social networks to maintain friendships are sacrificing a great deal of the interpersonal aspects of those relationships.

    Personally, I find Facebook slightly invasive, and have just recently been introduced to Twitter, in which I am now enthralled. With a minimal word limit, Twitter allows for abbreviated messages, preventing any sort of belief that such a message could serve to replace an in-person interaction. Also, I have been reading daily about Twitter's use as a business tool, which I find fascinating. In one example, a bakery "tweeted" each time it had warm cookies to serve.

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