Professor Fox
Eng. 110 Mon/Wed 3:00 pm
25 Nov. 2013
Social Media: An Avenue of Lies and Deception The methods by which people communicate have changed and evolved with time so that some of the values in face-to-face communication have been lost. Body language is now found through the tone of text, and face-to-face conversations have transformed into typing messages and sending photos. Of the top ten most popular websites, as tracked by Alexa (a web information company), half are social networking sites (Golbeck). The popularity of using social networking sites continues to expand with time, and as technology grows, easier access to such sites is increasing, ultimately diminishing face-to-face communication. There is no denying that social media allow people to remain connected, near or far from one another, but there is controversy regarding the effects they have on people and on their relationships with others. Therefore, the impact of a person’s ability to access social networking sites is negatively affecting that person’s relationships with other people in their lives, whether it is family members, friends, intimate relationships, or the relationship within self. The Internet was invented in the nineteenth century by Tim Berners-Lee. Berners-Lee viewed his invention as a space that allowed people to interact in a virtual sense. At the start of the Internet, there were limited ways people could interact with one another. It was not until 1997 that blogging began, and in 1999, the website blogger launched, now currently owned and known as Google, which allowed people to comment on one another’s blogs initiating online interaction. In 1997, the first social networking site, Six Degrees, was commenced, enabling people to generate profiles and to display friends. At its height of popularity, Six Degrees held a total of one million users. In 2002, Friendster was established followed by MySpace in 2003, which essentially brought social
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