Social Networking Effects

CONS

• Cyber Bullying
• Cyber bullying is when a teen get harassed, threatened, humiliated or embarrassed by using the internet or any digital technologies. Recently social network has becoming the target. It is devastating for the victim; cyber bullying can lead to suicide and depression. Social networking site is where they can say thing but not in person. Online bullies confident that and they can make contact with their victims anytime, anywhere, day or night, not just in the school. It is clear that social networking shows cyber bullying is just one of the negative impacts that social networking site has on society today.

• Interference at workplace
• Social networking sites can have a negative impact in the workplace. They create distraction, decrease productivity, cost companies money, can jeopardize a company’s reputation and legal liability and for those users who don’t have their profiles set to private can often result in unemployment. Social networking sites also able to harmful for potential employees looking for job, as face book and MySpace are incredible resources for companies as they offer helpful information about a candidate’s true colors. Several profiles often contain awkward and embarrassing information that job seekers would not want their future managers to know about themselves.

• Isolation and depression
• Communicating with people over the internet makes bad contact on our relationship and at the same time they also can strengthen out week depression we have. The connection with the people we don’t see also can make our depression strong and also bring social isolation. People who isolated they may have a fake healthy friendship by talking or meeting people online. Marriage and carrier life can be ruined by increasing the number of people using the internet.

• Child pornography
• Child pornography is the most uploaded and shared due to the popularity and the number of growing in social network. It is also the fastest growing criminal segment on the internet. People been uploading pictures and videos without noticing that the files they upload are inappropriate to post on social network. Microsoft Corporation comes out with a program that can detect and deleted the uploaded picture and video of child pornography.

• Theft
• People found too many ways to steal, hack or commit fraud online. Social network has been the main aim for stealing information through different personalities. While creating a profile in a social site it will ask you to fill in information such as your full name, location, email account, friends and relationship. This will make the user unaware and share the information that will harm the user and make the thief to hack the users account easily.
• One of the many reasons writing this is to share and also warn people that spent all day reading updates on facebook or tweeting...the past few days have not been too good for some ladies that have been unfortunate because of social networks

• Sometimes your friend wont care about your updates on social networks, i read a story of a Thailand woman and was very sad, this lady wrote on facebook....”I will kill myself in 10 minutes (am not sure about the time any longer ) but instead of the friend calling the neighbors, husband or the police, they all wrote “ Lmaooo, some Lol and some just like the status....and few minutes later she committed suicide by hanging her self

• Did anyone remember the Craigslist killer (Philip Markoff) who will invite his victims via craiglist and rob them at gun point .A lady was killed at one of his operations...

• A lady recently shared his ordeal in the hands of married men he met on BBM(blackberry messenger) after few days of chatting, they met themselves and started seeing each other...after few months, she was invited on a boat cruise, their she was drugged, raped, molested and was also threatened that if she call the police..The picture of what happened will be available on BBM, facebook and twitter...this could cause a serious trauma for this lady if the man makes known his threats...
• Also the daughter of an army officer that was invited recently was killed by her friends, she met them on facebook and they have been exchanging pleasantries, she traveled to meet them, but they drugged, raped and killed the innocent lady

• Now this are some of the things that pop up on my mind...Is Social networking doing more good than harm?...I don’t want to write more stories not to keep you bored....but I need your comments on this...share the good, Bad and ugly with me and readers of this article please....

CASES OF PROS
• I once read about someone that was on morning exercise, and slumped on the way...she was dying, but was able to type “ Save me am dying...”she typed the location and immediately, many of her followers who saw that tweet immediately called 911...and she was saved after few minutes..

• Also in Kenya, a man saved his family from armed robbery, when he tweeted, “someone is forcing the door open, please call the police” sometimes, you can’t call, you might be in danger, but if you can tweet or update your status, your good friends will come support you.

• About 2 weeks ago, 2 different cancer patients was saved via twitter, and it was all over the news online, her friends created a hastag #SaveDebbie and tweeted about this for few days, tweeting @ the celebrities...and I can tell you that her friends raised $40,000 for this lady just via twitter and facebook,the other lady was saved on twitter too, she was given approximately $20,000...This are the joy of social networks.....

Tips to guide you when using social networks

• Do not let peer pressure or what other people are doing on these sites convince you to do something you are not comfortable with.
• Be wary of publishing any identifying information about yourself – either in your profile or in your posts – such as phone numbers, pictures of your home, workplace or school, your address or birthday.
• Pick a user name that does not include any personal information. For example, “joe_glasgow” or “jane_liverpool” would be bad choices.
• Set up a separate email account to register and receive mail from the site. That way if you want to close down your account/page, you can simply stop using that mail account. Setting up a new email account is very simple and quick to do using such providers as Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail or Gmail.
• Use strong passwords.
• Keep your profile closed and allow only your friends to view your profile.
• What goes online stays online. Do not say anything or publish pictures that might later cause you or someone else embarrassment.
• Be aware of what friends post about you, or reply to your posts, particularly about your personal details and activities.
• Remember that many companies routinely view current or prospective employees’ social networking pages, so be careful about what you say, what pictures you post and your profile.
• Learn how to use the site properly. Use the privacy features to restrict strangers’ access to your profile. Be guarded about who you let join your network
• Be on your guard against phishing scams
• Ensure you have effective and updated antivirus/antispyware software and firewall running before you go online.