Social Networking

     Social Networking has changed all of our lives. Social networks such has Facebook has become societies way of communication. Today, there are over 1.4 billion users on Facebook and 22% of them log on daily. It is not rare that when you meet someone new, you'll get a friend request or send a friend request to that person the day of. I can see this in my personal life. I was recently put into a group in one of my classes and the only way for us to communicate was through a group created on Facebook. Meet, add, communicate.

     This leads to one of many benefits of Social Networking. By communicating on Facebook it makes it easier for my group and I to exchange information. This ignores the traveling time that each of us will have to make if we were to meet in person. It is also easier for the group because Facebook is so easily accessible. All phones, laptops, computers, tablets, etc have internet and connecting to Facebook is as easy as one, two, three. Moving on from my personal experience, because Facebook is accessible pretty much everywhere people can post anything they want on it at any time, whether its photos or statuses. Companies can see this as a benefit. According to "Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting" by Frank Langiftt, Crawford Hentz (a recruiter) thinks Social Networking is the best thing that happened to job recruiting. LinkedIn helps Hentz minimize her time of finding someone she wants to recruit by typing in a keyword and finds the best candidate. After this Hentz may search up the person she wants to recruit on other sites such as Facebook and if their photos are accessible, she may view them. If they have inappropriate photos Hentz may choose not to hire the candidate. This is another benefit for Hentz.

    However, when there is benefits, there are always "dark sides." As I just mentioned, social networking may expose your personal life to the public. Let's say you were the candidate Hentz wanted to hire but oh wait, she just looked at your Facebook photos and saw you drunk passed out on the coach and there goes your potential job. That example may be a little extreme but lets look at Randi Zuckerburg's experience. According to "Facebook Privacy is so Confusing even the Zuckerburg Family Photo Isn't Private" by Rebecca Greenfield, Randi Zuckerburg (sister of the CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerburg) posted a photo of her family and wanted to only so her friends. But somehow a random person was able to get their hands on the photo and show everyone. This just goes to show that your personal life is not safe as long as there is Social Networking.

     I think as time progresses, everyone will be using Social Networking. People will lose the experience of meeting up with friends and just enjoying life. It will all be about Social Networking, which will lead everyone to be on their phones 24/7. We can even see that today from the newer generations. In the future people will look at more ways to protect their personal life from being exposed but I think that there will be no way of protecting it. There is always a loop hole in the system and if you want to protect your life, do not post things that you will regret later on in life or just not be part of the Social Networking process.

Citations: 

1. Facebook Privacy Is So Confusing Even the Zuckerberg Family Photo Isn't Private, The Atlantic Wire, Greenfield, R. December 26, 2012 http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2012/12/facebook-privacy-so-confusing-even-zuckerberg-family-photo-isnt-private/60313/

2. Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting by Frank Langfitt, NPR, March 16, 2008. available from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6522523&sc=emaf