Impact of Social Networking Sites in Society

                         Impact of Social Networking Sites in Society

Introduction

With the advancement in technology and the rise of internet various modes of communication have been increased in which the most recent being social networking sites.  With the advent of social networking sites countless communication benefits have been received by users, including the ability to remain in contact with peers, friends and families over time differences and distances. Social networking is a tool used by the people all around the world that allows individual to create a public profile within the system and allow them to view the list of other people whom they share a connection. It has grown to mass online activity in which millions of users are engaged in their leisure time. On the other side this new mode of communication has also raised so many negative issues like overexposure of personal information among its users in the whole society, cyber bullying, decreased productivity among students and employees etc. This paper mainly focused to answer the question whether social networking sites are boon or bane for today’s society. In this essay we focus on the positive as well as the negative impacts of social networking sites and what are the ethical responsibilities of the people using these sites.

Keywords: Social networking sites; online ownership; Impacts of Social Networking 

Characteristics of Social networking sites

The basic characteristics of the social networking sites are described below

• Highly Interactive- It is the most important feature of the social networking sites they are highly interactive. It is not only used for chatting and communication purposes. Websites like facebook are filled with gaming applications where you can play different kinds of games or you can find different kind of job opportunities also (Ryan Dube,2007)
• New ways for community formation- It has become a very common for the members who hold common interests; hobbies form a community in social networking sites like facebook. It provides a new for the people to connect themselves (Antwan yahyah,2012).
• Ease of use- These social networking sites are very easy to use that anyone with basic internet skills can use these sites and it is completely free of cost and open for everyone.
• Helps to Build conversations and networks-Members can browse the content posted by others It also allows us to upload text messages video files free of cost It also includes the facility where members can create pages where they post, photographs related to them. (Ryan Dube 2007)
• Chat Client- Most Social networking sites provide the facility of chatting. Member can use this facility to chat with their friends, relatives by sitting anywhere in the world

Positive impacts of social networking

Social networking has a major influence in 21st century in society enabling citizens to communicate with each other in different ways. It has become very common way for people belongs to different age groups, culture and ethnic background that connect together. Now a day’s social networking sites can be accessed through mobile phones. Most of the people carry their cell phones all the time. It enables the user to send messages to their friends, to update their status, upload photos anytime anywhere in the world. Top sites that are being used by users on their cell phones are Facebook, my space, LinkedIn. Also people tend to travel from one place to another for business purpose, education related reasons. This act of migration causes friends, relatives to stay separate but with the introduction of internet and social networking sites it becomes easier for the people to communicate effectively regardless of distance apart. Lots of businesses have started taking the help of these social networking sites to attract their customers.