Social Networking

2009-09-29T17:39:00.000-07:00

Social networking has become more and more common in today's society. Especially to our youth, they spend countless hours dazed away at a screen in their own world. Looking at this phenomenon from a few perspectives can show positive and negative effects on the community as we will see in the following discussion of a Frontline presentation and two articles. One article on Obama's campaign's use of social networking tools and the second on virtual communities.
The Frontline presentation called "Growing Up Online" projected both positive and negative effects on our youth. For instance the easiest thing to spot out is the childrens' safety from sexual predators. Although some studies have proven that children are aware of the danger and do protect themselves. However the bad part that will remain within this is parents not able to completely have a watching eye over their kids. Such as the child whom commited suicide from constant bullying from classmates over the internet and in school. However in light of the bad i feel their is greater good within this evolving new life. Such as creating social skills like in the article "Second Life Teaches Life Lessons".
The thing i find amazing is that children reinvent themselves and push their limits farther than they would in real life to reach out and push their anti social bounderies. This i feel is great use of the new found community. Social networking has also expanded boundaries in other areas as we can see in the third and final article on Obama's compaign strategy. The use this network to spread word and create a whole new way of getting their ideals out and to the masses.
The whole theory and creativity is allowing the followers to spread the word to their friends through a website where everyone can come together and create events like fundraisers. The website also allows credit card donations which have created quite a bit of reasources for the Obama campaign to advertise. Nearly 48 percent of his donations came from less than 200 dollar amounts. It is no doubt that the social networking of today's society has greater improved our lives and functionality. I can't wait for what other brilliant ideas evolve next!