SOCIAL NETWORKING

A few examples of social networking sites are Facebook, Twitter, etc… Social networking sites can be used in the corporate world. Companies can create websites that show the history of the company, the product lines, etc… A company may use social networking sites like Linkedin.com to build business relationships with colleagues and potential clients. Companies also take advantage of Facebook to advertise and promote themselves and the business.  According to Frank Lanfitt, “Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting,” professional recruiters have started hunting for job candidates using social networking technology — like the kind found on the popular sites MySpace and Facebook.

Some advantages of social networking sites are that they help you keep in touch friends and family. You can also find jobs, as I stated above.  Social networking sites are also used to share multiple points of view. For example, Blogs allow you to express your ideas and people can interact with you and comment on your thoughts.

One major dark side of social networking sites is loss of privacy. Facebook and twitter are great ways for people to stalk you. Twitter and Facebook lovers update their statuses every second of the day. They are bound to be stalked if tell the entire world what you are doing and where you are. People need to take more precaution when they list their personal information online. According to Jeffrey R. Young, “They're Back, and They're Bad: Campus-Gossip Web Sites," students have more ways that ever to post anonymous attacks on classmantes, thanks (or rather, no thanks) to new and expanded online forums promising to be bigger and juicer than the infamous Juicy Campus, which drew fierce protests from harassed students before it shut down earlier this year. Social networking can harm you when bad rumors are spread.

I think in the future, it is going be really hard to protect our personal information because everything will be digitized. It is very easy for anyone to hack into something and steal your information.

Blogs v. Wikis

The new media is changing the way how we receive information. Blogs and wikis have become very popular on the Internet and both are very useful tools because people are able to express themselves and share their opinions.

A blog is an on line journal where bloggers maintain ongoing posts about their lives and the world around them. People write about topics that interest them and comment freely on everyday news. According to Melissa Gerry’s article, “Celebrity Blogs: The Impact of New Media,” blogs have become more popular and it was estimated that more than 7% of Internet users had created a blog and more than 30 million people look at them on a regular basis. Wikipedia.com defines a wiki as a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of Interlinked web pages via a web browser. Basically, on a wiki users can edit and add content on a wiki page.

Blogs and wikis are similar because both are a way of communicating. Blogs are more opinionated than wikis because wikis are a collaboration of facts by different individuals. Blogs and wikis both allow users to edit pages and leave their comments on the Internet. A blog is similar to a journal where a person can talk about anything, while a wiki is website that allows its users to collaborate and edit contents on that page. Blogs can also be used for collaboration. One example is our class blogs. The Blogroll that we added to our blogs allows the entire class to connect with each other and comment on each other’s blogs. Blogs are organized chronologically and wikis are organized by content.

A wiki that has not been created yet is wiki page only for student notes. Students would be able to collaborate all their class notes into one big study sheet on a wiki. Students and instructor can add/edit as they please. This would be great because if a student misses a class, they can refer to the notes on the wiki page to catch up.

Are Social Networking sites bad for our children?

OFCOURSE! Social networks like Facebook, twitter, and MySpace are bad for children. These social networks are rapidly growing; Facebook alone had a 145% growth in 2010 and there are more than 150 million users. Facebook is used to keep in touch with friends and family by sharing your comments, thoughts, pictures, and videos with your friends and family. Facebook was originally intended for college students but today, anyone can join it. Children below the age of 10 have a Facebook account. Facebook is very addicting and nowadays almost everyone is on the internet all the time. According to several studies conducted by neuroscientists, Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking sites are causing “alarming” changes in the brains of young users. Social networking sites shorten attention spans. Not only are social networking sites bad for the brain, but also unsafe for children. Parents cannot keep track of what their children are doing all the time. Social networking sites are a great way for pedophiles to lure young children into their traps. Children are gullible and may think their friend on Facebook is their age, but it may be some 50 year old guy that is trying to capture you in his trap so he can use you for his own pleasure.  I am totally against children using social networking sites.