Social Networking is a new technology of the new media. It is used by all sorts of people world-wide. Social Networking has innovated new uses and defined a new way of socializing.
Social Networking is a great way to keep in contact with your friends. Through websites such as Facebook or Twitter you can see what your friends are up to by seeing their status updates. It's a new way of socializing so you don't even have to call and talk with your friends when you can leave comments on facebook to your friends all at once. A new use of this technology is job postings. Companies are now recruiting and posting jobs on twitter. "We spoke with some career experts about how you can search wisely. In general, you must sieve through hashtags, a symbol (#) Twitter users assign to their tweets that sorts them into different categories (I wrote a CIO.com overview on Twitter hashtags a few months ago). We also learned about a few Twitter handles (Twitter user names) that post some helpful content if you're trying to land your next gig." (Lynch, Twitter Tips: How to Find Job Posts on Twitter). Companies may also even advertise on Facebook creating groups to promote themselves and try to hire people. It's easier to promote themselves with these social networking websites because it doesn't cost them anything.
However there are bad sides to social networking. For example, people can be nosy and post things about other people causing problems. During the MTV Awards when Kanye West made a rude outburst during Taylor Swift's acceptance speech. Obama made a remark about Kanye calling him a "jackass" and it got around so fast it made it into the headlines. The president weighing in on the biggest pop culture story of the day was too delicious to ignore. "Soon, e-mails about Obama's comment began circulating internally at ABC. Before news executives had determined whether the material was publishable, Moran and a handful of other ABC News employees posted the remark on Twitter." (Gold, Obama, Kanye West and Trouble With Twitter). The problem with this is that Obama made this remark off the record. Social Networking can be bad because it can cause too much gossiping. People getting into other people's business may cause problems.
I also want to talk about this movie briefly since it kind of relates to this subject. The movie, Catfish, is a documentary film that came out on selected theaters. You can only watch it in Manhattan to my knowledge. Without revealing too much of the plot in case anyone else wants to see it, it basically is about a guy who forms a relationship with a family through facebook. He discovers using google that some of the things they said were lies and they aren't who they appear to be. He decided to take it upon himself to go visit unannounced and the things he discovers is just scary and crazy. To find out, you should go watch it. But it makes me think that people using facebook or other social networking websites can be "fake". You have to be careful with who you associate with in these social networking websites. The thing you have to think about is that when you create a facebook account, and all the pictures you post up and statuses, you are trying to represent yourself the best way possible. And people will try to look the best they can even if they are lies. They can adjust their pics using photoshops, etc. It's like a facade. And people updating their facebook or twitter statuses are basically people raising their hands in the air calling for attention. You have to be careful not to get carried away with it. That may be a bad thing about facebook. Sometimes you should get out into the real world and socialize the old fashioned way.
In the future these technologies will improve. It can only improve. If there is one aspect that will improve on it should be privacy settings. Sometimes people have no lives and try to spy on others. Unfortunately I feel social networking may replace phones and letters. I feel it already has. Even I use my mytouch phone to contact people more on facebook. We'll see how else they can improve it on.
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