social media

Are Social Networking Sites Good for Our Society? 47% of Americans adults used social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Classmates.com in 2011, up to from 26% in 2008. On social media sites like these, users may develop biographical profiles, communicate with friends and strangers, do research, and share thoughts, photos, music, links, and more.
Proponents of social networking sites say that the online communities promote increased interaction with friends and family; offer teacher, librarians, and students valuable access to educational support and materials; facilitate social and political change; disseminate useful information rapidly.
Opponents of social networking sites say that the sites prevent face-to-face communication; waste time on frivolous activity; alter children’s brains and behaviour making them more prone to ADHD; expose users to predators like pedophiles and burgulars; and spread false and potentially dangerous information.
Below are a few interesting facts regarding social networking:
1. Social networking sites are a top news source for 27% of Americans, ranking below newspapers (28%) and above radio (18%) and print publications (6%)
2. Students who used social networking sites while studying scored 20% lower on tests and students who used social media had an average GPA of 3.06 versus non-users who had an average GPA of 3.82.
3. 35 global heads of state, every US Cabinet agency, 84% of US state govenors, every major candidate for US President, and mor than 40% of top global religious leaders are on Twitter.
4. 10% of people your than 25 year old respond to social media and text messages during sex.
5. In July 012 Americans spend 74.0 billion minutes on social media via a home computer, 40.8 billion minutes via apps, and 5.7 billion minutes via mobile web browsers, a total of 121.1 billion minutes on networking sites.

Proponents of social media cheer on the benefits and possible advances to society while dissenters worry the dangers and wasted time far outweigh any benefit.

Death of Human Interaction
There are many scenes in which you can find a family at a restaurant, the father checking his iPhone for new e-mail, the mother text messaging her friend and the children either tweeting their whereabouts or playing games on their phones. Each person on the opposite end of their social networking streams is pleased to connect with their friends at any time; meanwhile the passerby observes a family all sitting at the table with their heads buried in their gadgets with no conversation or eye contact. I can say for certain that you’ve either observed this exact scene or been a part of this scene at some point in time. What happened to times when family would go out on a Saturday night and spend time talking about their week, what they did at school or at work? With the ever increasing availability of social networking tools at the end of your fingertips, face to face human interaction is quickly becoming a thing of the past.
The media plays a huge role in promoting the death of in-person human reaction as well. There are commercials for phone plans that include unlimited text messaging as well as access to many of the social networking apps such as Facebook and Twitter. There’s one television commercial specifically sets the scene of a couple sitting at a dinner table each with their phone in their hands sending text messages to each other. The man say’s “Did you just break up with me in a text message?” The woman not only affirms his question but also points out that with her new phone plan she can break up with him via e-mail as well as with a phone call, the man looks ambushed and put off. The fact that companies are marketing the fact that face to face human interaction is just about unnecessary is disturbing.
The Dangers of Social Networking There is an inherit danger involved with social networking as well. On May 20, 2010 Maryland State Govenor Martin O’Malley signed into law a bill (http://mlis.state.md.us/2010rs/billfile/SB03321.htm) that prohibits the use of hand-held devices while driving. This was just the beginnings of the state’s aggressive distracted driver legislation. The law, which went into effect in October 2010, is currently only enforceable as a secondary offense meaning that a driver must be breaking another traffic law before being cited for the use of a hand-held device. As time passes we are sure to see many more states adopt this type of law and hopefully enforce it as a primary offense. Texting while driving is not the only that that drivers are distracted by. There are apps that allow you to compose tweets, update Facebook, and even video conference. On May 2012, Maryland became the first state to pass a law prohibiting employers from asking current or prospective employees for their user names or passwords for social networking sites. Governor Jerry Brown of California announce via Twitter on September 27, 2012 that he signed two bills into law to prohibit employers and universities from demanding passwords. Other states have followed suit and have passed social media protection laws or have laws pending. A more serious issue with social networking today is the ease to personal information as well as the alarming amount of private details people share about their day. Children participate in social networking as well and at very young ages, which in turn allows sexual predators unprecedented access to photos of children as well as details to their whereabouts and their schedule. Aside from sexual predators, these sites also provide a playground for hackers and those that are out to steal your personal information. For example, Twitter has an option to send a user a direct message that is not intended for the rest of the twitter population. In these direct messages you could send someone your phone number or e-mail address. Those same messages can be intercepted by a hacker and used to gather information on the user that could lead to further exposure.

Social Media:
We all love Social Media, Right? When does it becomes too much?, Advantages and Disadvantages to Social Networking

Ricky Williams

Information Technology Management 5100
Professor Don George
February 24, 2014

Have you noticed that your friends only talk to you 140 characters at a time? Or vice versa? Do you tweet about your Facebook status while listening to music on Last.fm on your or iPod. Almost every teenager has one or more social media accounts. Everyday millions of students go on a social media website. To many of them, social media is like a drug. There’s a eurphoric high that comes from having a new notification, almost like a high from a hit of cocaine. The lows of not being able to check a post when they want is like withdrawals of an alcoholic. There has been a phenomenal rise of a new kind of media – called ‘social media’ that has proliferated and fundamentally changed the way we communicate in the last six years.
Social media is the online content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies. It is a shift in how people discover, read and share information and content; it supports the human need for social interaction with technology, transforming broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues (many to many). Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. are always brought up when discussing about social media. To get a clear thought of what social media is, this term has to be split into two parts: social and media. Being social means requires interaction and networking and media is considered a communication tool. Social media is considered as web 2.0 platforms that help users interact and build relationships. Due to rapid development of technology, people can keep in touch with the rest of the world using these platforms. Communication is an essential part of human life when it comes to interacting and developing our society.
Today we’ve taken communication to a new level, social media and social networking. Once you join a social networking site, you will more than likely, find yourself spending a lot more time there. Is it all fun or can it be addictive? Social media is like a coin with two sides; positive and negative. In this paper I’m going focus on some of good and the negative attention that social media and social networking attracts.
People are spending more and more time on social networking sites as a means of communicating between friends, family and even strangers. Let’s face it, whether it’s Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook social media plays a major part in our lives. Social networking offers many benefits. It is now easier than ever to keep in touch with colleagues and old friends.

The primary disadvantage of social networking is that people do not know how to network e

As stated, social media started out as a convenient way of keeping people in touch with each other. Through this innovative outlet, internet surfers from around the world were instantly given the ability to communicate with friends and family with having to actually talk to them. With a few uploads of your pictures and a couple lines of text, dormant friendships were given new life and everyone was excited to be a part of the newest fad. Then the novelty wore off. Popular sites like Myspace became child’s play and sophisticated adults became embarrassed to be a part of the fad anymore. But just when you thought it was over for this ‘new toy’ her comes Facebook and Twitter rounding the corners and leaving all others in the dust. Now it’s cool again! Even better, now you have to be part of it! Everyone’s on there and you don’t want to be left out or an outcast. Some many ways to fight time on a slow day. So many ways to keep you entertained while you’re online. What could go wrong? How about human nature. “Reliance on social media has decreased the relationships formed between students and their professors due to the detachment of email, hiding the face linked to the voice.” (Puglisi). Dr Kelley Crowley, a teacher of public relations writing and principles of advertising at West Virginia University, agrees with this statement and also makes an observation that I can easily relate too, being a college student myself. She says: “students have become reticent and intimated in the classroom to speak directly to me. Rather, they feel more comfortable sending me an email from behind a computer screen, which is impersonal and does not contain context at all.” Crowley goes on to suggest that “avoiding personal interactions harms the competency of young professionals.” She points to lack of eye contact in interviews and terrible grammar habits as negative effects on the professional lives of young adults due to overuse of cyber interactions. If college students were to moderate their use of these social networks and force themselves to type sentences that were grammatically correct, then we might be able to co-exist with this technology. But instead most of them don’t. They get distracted by gossip, entertainment, self-admiration, and plain uncontrollable addiction. In addition, asking them to type sentences without grammatical errors would be almost impossible when there are so many people to type to and the option for so many abbreviations and acronyms for words are available.

Conclusions
Web 2.0 is here to stay, and social media marketing has emerged as one of the most popular points on the technology spectrum. Sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Digg and hundreds of blogs and podcasts have made it possible to connect with customers on a one-on-one base. So, before a company should jump on the bandwagon, they should make sure they consider all social media marketing pros and cons.
Although social media has lots of benefits that are attractive and helpful to us, it usually give more harmful influences than good ones. Like any addiction; it’s not a small problem that can be ignored. It depends on all of us to use social media wisely
Many people are attracted to social media because of its perceived connectivity and its free to use.
No one can argue with the fact that social media has a positive impact our society, but as mentiona
We’re always talking about the dangers but we can’t get enough of it.
Social networking is one of the greatest inventions of this generation and is sure to be even more pervasive with generations to com. There are inherent danges and downsides with just about every type of technology, and while this can at times take away from the innovation, with some general security practices in place and good user education these threats can be minimized. There are sure to be more social networking innovations that change the way we communicate with each other as time passes, with that said, count on these threats to these innovations to be just as pervasive. Social networking can be a great tool to say connected when you are on the go. The options to contact someone no matter where you are seemingly endless. Use these sites wisely but don’t forget how to shake someone’s hand, introduce someone, carry on a face to face conversation or even send someone a note, as these are still the most personal way to communicate. Unplug and take the time to enjoy life and what’s happening around you.

References – alphabetically by author, if no author by the 1st word in citation
Language (2009). In Columbia electronic encyclopedia. Retrieved September 18, 2012, from http://www.informationplease.com article retrived from an online refence work with no author
South, S., Oltmmanns, T., & Turkheimer, E (2009). Interpersonal communication across peer groups. Journal of Communication, 73 (2) 675-692. Doi: 10.1111/j.1467-6494… online journal article with DOI
South, S., Oltmmanns, T., & Turkheimer, E (2009). Interpersonal communication across peer groups. Journal of Communication, 73 (2) 675-692. Retrived from http://search.ebscohost.com

References: – alphabetically by author, if no author by the 1st word in citation Language (2009). In Columbia electronic encyclopedia. Retrieved September 18, 2012, from http://www.informationplease.com article retrived from an online refence work with no author South, S., Oltmmanns, T., & Turkheimer, E (2009). Interpersonal communication across peer groups. Journal of Communication, 73 (2) 675-692. Doi: 10.1111/j.1467-6494… online journal article with DOI South, S., Oltmmanns, T., & Turkheimer, E (2009). Interpersonal communication across peer groups. Journal of Communication, 73 (2) 675-692. Retrived from http://search.ebscohost.com