Social networking sites have been around for a number of years now, and over time their popularity has grown to unbelievable figures. With Facebook recently hitting half a billion users, it is easy to see that a lot of the world see Facebook (as well as others such as MySpace, Twitter and Bebo) as a normal, everyday, part of their lives.
There are many positive social benefits of social networking. People can communicate with their 'friends' at the touch of a mouse, can create and consume information, such as photos, videos, and music, and can connect with people from all over the world.
Alongside the benefits, there are many negatives factors which go alongside social networking. People can use these sites to interact with people, in an almost artificial way, instead of seeing these people in person, in a real place with activities going on around them, they are sitting in front of a screen belittling their relationships.
Social networking has and still will be changing people's relationships. To befriend somebody that you don't know, have only just met, or have known most of your life all mean the same thing via social networking sites. The majority of Facebook users (as an example) have hundreds, if not thousands of friends, which just simply isn't real outside of the cyberworld. For me personally, probably only 70%/80% of my Facebook 'friends' i have met and interacted with in the real world, or have mutual friends with.
http://thomas-fletcher.com/friendwheel/showwheel.php?site=facebook&name=Emily%20Curtis&userid=1250312023&pass=12eb5a6639&monthno=01&xmlwheel=1
This link (above) shows a wheel of my Facebook friends, which when you mouse over their separate names, connects mine and their mutual friends names together with lines. In my case, the people with the most connections (i.e. mutual friends) are the ones that i know the most, excluding my siblings, who have different groups of friends to me.
Social networking, as well as the rest of the internet, allows you to instantly access almost any information without much effort. This overload of information affects people's ability to process information. Most people when reading a text via the internet, will only scan through the information, not even coming close to reading the numerous facts and figures, and instead getting what they need within moments, possibly missing out on vital info.
Other than social networking, one other form of digital communication which has affected my life and made the biggest impact is texting. The ability to find something out, get hold of somebody, arrange something, or anything else, within minutes is something I really take for granted. I don't know quite what i could do to the same extent if texting did not exist. I know that letter writing is hardly as efficient to use in a long term way. I spent the last year communicating to one of my best friends who was sectioned and in a hospital that i couldn't travel to, just using letters, and waiting a week for a reply was hardly easy, as by the time each of us recieved the other's letter, a lot of things had changed, and the letters became very repetitive. This is why i love being able to text so much, because it's simple, quick and instant.
The future of networking is something a lot of people are worried about. In 2004 Facebook was a simple college site and in only 6 years it has become a ridiculous thing, with roughly a 12th of the population having an account. I am not too sure what the future might consist, but I'm sure sites like Facebook will have plenty more members, and I can assume that there will be more sites, with more new and interesting things to do on them. Despite a lot of people being sceptical about the future, I welcome it with open hands.
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