Social networking

Adverse Effects of Social Networking Outweigh its Uses. The worldwide internet users are fast approaching the 2 billion mark. (Internet Usage Statistics) With the increase in internet usage a trend which has seen radical spread in recent times is of social networking. Social networking websites are responsible for providing people with common platforms where they can interact with each other. Social networking websites are mostly free and allow the users to create their respective profiles, upload photos, interact with other people and do loads of other stuff. These characteristics have contributed to the rapid increase in social networking in the last decade or so. Facebook, MySpace and twitter are among the most widely followed websites on the internet. With facebook alone having gained 500 million users since its launch in Feb. 2004 till July 2010. Twitter has more than 24 million unique visitors per month. (Social networking statistics 2010) Social networking as an industry has transformed into a billion dollar business where different websites are vying to attract more and more users to capture the larger share of market. As far as the users are concerned almost 73% teenagers and young adults are members of at least one social network (Social networking statistics 2010) And it is quite common to find people who are active users of more than one social network at the same time. Social networking is an unignorable phenomenon of our age. People of all age groups and professions are being affected by it. Social networking is being used for private as well as professional objectives. Social networking provides an opportunity to people where they can express their individuality and interact with people having similar interests. Although social networking has contributed a lot to our lives yet its use should be limited and controlled because of the social, physical, and psychological problems being caused by its excessive use. Excessive social networking has been known to cause social problems, which seemingly goes against its basic purpose of allowing people to socialize. Social networking allows people to reach out to other people whom they could not have met in real life. But while people are busy maintaining their online profiles they get detached from their real life and the people around them. They lose the ability to speak effectively in public and read body language. Their circle of real life friends becomes smaller. This problem is mainly prevalent among teenagers. (Social networking causes cancer) Moreover social networking among teenagers is of grave concern for the parents. Parents are often found complaining that their interaction with their children is decreasing day by day. Teenagers are found living in a world revolving around cell phones, text messaging, instant messaging and social networking. Teenagers usually have wide circles of virtual friends that their parents know nothing about. There would be a number of people online who know more about these teenagers than their parents do. There are countless stories of predators communicating and making use of such unsuspecting teenagers. And their parents don’t know anything about such interactions until it is too late. (Take advantage of social networking) There have been cases in which teenage suicides have been linked to social networking. An article published in Sunday times in 2008 reported the story of a chain of suicides committed by teenagers in south Wales. In the reported story teenagers committed suicide and then their friends created fan pages for them after their deaths. A police officer at that time commented that teenagers might be considering suicide as a way of gaining prestige among their peers. And having fan pages created after their name was surely attracting teenagers. (Bruxelles and Malvern) Social security issues arising because of social networking are also of prime concern and involve the violation of basic human rights of privacy and security. When social networking websites first appeared on the web they provided almost no security measures. They were open to predators and hackers who could gain access to personal information. The actual invention of website ‘facebook’ involves the hacking of university databases by a Harvard sophomore year student and facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg. He had first created a website called “facemesh” on the concept of ‘hot or not’. Where the user could pick the hotter of two pictures of girls placed side by side. Mark Zuckerberg obtained the required pictures from databases of different universities. This later gave Mark Zuckerberg the idea of creating facebook which was initially intended for Harvard students only but was later expanded to other universities and eventually the whole world. It currently has more than 500 million registered users and Mark Zuckerberg is currently the youngest billionaire in the world. (Mark Zuckerberg) In another case a 49 year old woman Lori Drew was convicted in misdemeanor charges for creating a phony online identity of a sixteen year old boy. This fake identity was used to communicate with a thirteen year old girl Megan Meier. The two communicated and held an online relationship for some time when finally the lady sent Meier a message using her fake online persona announcing the end of their relationship and telling her that the world was better off without her. Megan Meier committed suicide shortly afterwards in May 2006. Lori Drew was acquitted of most of the serious charges she faced in the federal court. She was placed on probation and sentenced to three years in prison. At the same time it raised a lot of concern among cyber crime experts and socialists regarding the effects of social networking and the security and privacy options provided by social networking websites. ( Dobuzinskis and Whitcomb) A social benefit of social networking websites is that they are being used as a low cost medium of advertisement and business. It allows business entities to reach wider markets. This is proven by the fact that facebook has more than 1.5 million business pages. More and more business entities are opting for this medium to promote their products and conduct transactions. But still there are many people who see this mode of conducting business with some apprehension (Social networking statistics 2010) Transactions conducted over the internet involve the risk of fraud, malfunctioning goods, or else goods being supplied that do not match with what was advertised. The official website of Federal Bureau of Investigation in United States of America warns people against internet frauds and provides guideline regarding conducting business on the internet (internet fraud) The internet crime complaint centre established by the F.B.I has had 2 million complaints reported till November 2010 since its formation in May 2000. Most of the complaints reported at the internet crime complaint centre involve frauds resulting in financial loss. With a mean reported loss of 500$ per complaint. The major complaints revolve around identity thefts and shopping scams. This clearly shows that internet is not reliable when it comes to business and the advertisements and information provided on social networking websites should not be trusted blindly. (“Internet crime complaint centre”) Social networking websites have been attributed as means of promoting freedom of speech and a right to express oneself. Such websites are platforms where anyone could express his or her point of view. Other forms of media like television and newspapers have a lot of restrictions and are not means to which a common man has easy access for the purpose of conveying his view point to other people. The kind of interaction and freedom of expression that is possible on social networking websites is by no means possible with any other form of media. But in the recent past this freedom of expression has been misused by people and has resulted in large scale controversies and international problems. In May 2010 a page was created on facebook which prompted its visitors to draw images of Prophet (P.B.U.H) and upload them. The Muslims all over the world regard any depiction of the holy Prophet (P.B.U.H), even favorable ones as blasphemous. This elicited a wave of indignation and rage from the whole Muslim community. It also resulted in the banning of facebook from different countries like Bangladesh, Iran, Pakistan etcetera. These bans were later lifted after the removal of the controversial elements from the websites (“facebook page”) US government deplored the publishing of such blasphemous images on facebook and commented that such material was offensive to Muslims and non-Muslims alike (“US slams”) Other websites like YouTube and MySpace have also faced banns from different countries for different reasons. On another occasion both twitter and facebook were banned by the Chinese government because a group was created on these websites which was urging rebels to launch worldwide protests. This incident occurred at the time when there were full scale riots going on between the Uighurs of Xingjian province and the Chinese government which resulted in more than 200 hundred people losing their lives. (Owen Fletcher) This substantiates the fact that the level of freedom provided by social networking websites is prone to being misused and could result in conflicts between ethnic and religious groups. Medical implications of excessive social networking are also being brought to light by researchers. Dr. Aric Sigman a fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine claims that people using social networks are eventually drawn into an artificial world. These people find it difficult to socialize in real world with real people. This behavior can lead to serious health problems including cancer, heart diseases, stroke, and dementia. Level of different hormones being produced in the body is different depending upon how a person interacts with other people. For example level of hormone oxytocin is different when someone sends an email as compared to when a person talks face to face with another person. This hormone induces a person to hug or interact with other people. All the working of our body actually depends upon the chemical reactions taking place in it. Slight changes in the production of different chemicals or hormones could lead to disastrous results. It has become increasingly common for teenagers to stay awake late at night for the express purpose of social networking. This could be the case where they have acquaintances in different parts of the world where the time pattern is different from their own locality. Lack of sleep for a long time could cause prolonged drowsiness, concentration problems and depression of immune system ( “psychological effects”) People who spend most of their time sitting in front of a computer screen also get nearly no time to exercise. Resulting in obesity and a whole chain of obesity related problems. Obesity is defined as abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that presents a risk to health and could further lead to a number of chronic diseases including diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and cancer. (WHO) Furthermore the problem of increasing obesity has also raised concern worldwide over the recent times. So much so that for the first time the congress had to declare September 2010 as the obesity awareness month. In England obesity increased by 5.5% between 2008 and 2009 ( Hope) The increase in average computer usage per person is a possible reason in the increased obesity worldwide. Critics reason that the increase in computer usage could not be wholly attributed to social networking. But statistics show that social networking occupies a sizeable chunk of the total time spent online by a person. The average social network user spends about five and a half hours on websites like facebook and twitter according to a news report published in February 2010. This number has been increased by 82% since December 2008 (“global time spent”) This occupies almost 23% of the average total time spent by a person using the internet (Ostrow) Social networking and such related technologies are infantilizing the human brain claims Dr. Susan Greenfield. There is a reduction in the working capacity of brain and it is brought to a state where bright lights and sudden changes become attractive. Just like for children. The attention span is reduced and the person thus affected could eventually suffer from memory loss. Especially children who are exposed to social networking and computer games are at risk. The fast action and reaction, instant messages, rapid interchanges could accustom the young mind to operate over such time spans and reduce the ability to retain information. Excessive computer usage also causes sleep disorders and verbal cognitive problems. Staring at a computer screen can cause visionary problems including shortsightedness, blurry vision, double vision, headaches, fatigue, glaucoma, and even blindness. Younger people are especially at risk in such cases. With the increasing trend of social networking and internet usage among pre-teens and teenagers the risk of computer vision syndrome is increasing. According to American Optometric Association almost 25% of school-age children suffer from visionary disorders and this number is increasing with the increase in computer usage. And this computer usage is often prompted by the urge to check the latest updates on social networking websites (computer eye strain) Excessive social networking is not yet being seen by people as remotely harmful as the rapid increase in its users depicts, but it has made us susceptible to psychological problems and disorders. Among children the sudden appearance of messages, refreshing of the screen with a single click, instant messages could cause focus and concentration problems. Limiting their ability to focus. This also exposes them to the threat of deficit- hyper activity disorder. This disorder is characterized by the co-existence of attention problems and hyperactivity. Sufferers of this disorder act without thinking and cannot settle down for even short spans of time. This disorder impairs the ability of a child to function properly at home, in academics and in social life (Wintour) Increase in social networking has also triggered insecurities among married couples. The December 21, 2009 issue of telegraph had an article which stated that social networking sites were actually being blamed for a number of divorces. A law firm stated that in twenty percent of divorce petitions facebook was cited as a cause in one way or the other. This can be attributed to the general decline in moral values in recent times. In the given divorce cases partners were found involved in inappropriate sexual chats online or other unethical activities like flirting or having online extramarital affairs. According to studies, students using social networking websites foster an increased amount of jealousy and negativity. Another stress related problem faced by some social networkers is that of cyber bullying. Cyber bullying is the act of using internet, cell phones or other electronic devices to send messages intended to harm others. Cyber bullying includes leaking personal information of a person on the internet, threatening, sending hate mail, spamming, posting sexual remarks, humiliating someone or posting false remarks about someone. Recent studies show that cyber bullying causes mental health problems with sufferers of cyber bullying finding it difficult to concentrate, having behavior problems, having difficulty communicating with others and feeling unsecure at educational institutes and work places. (“Social networking sites cause stress”) More and more people are jumping upon the social networking bandwagon with each passing day and soon get addicted to it. It is a trend which everyone is following without considering its pros and cons. But the physical and mental health of our general population and especially that of teenagers depends largely upon how we tackle this issue. Banning social networking websites would not solve the problem and would only worsen this situation. The very first step would be to actually consider it as a problem. And then mark out a plan and formulate proper regulations regarding the functioning of social networking websites. The age restrictions should be made more effective, the true identity of the user should be insured by the website administration, the content being published on these websites should pass through some filters which could determine its meaning and the intentions behind its publications. This would be quite a difficult task but it is not impossible. Such regulations could only be shaped if proper a mutual understanding and cooperation exists between the government, social networking website administrations and general public.

Works Cited
Bruxelles, Simon De, and Jack Malvern. "Social Network Sites Link to Town 's Seven Suicides - Times Online." The Sunday Times. 23 Jan. 2004. Web. 05 Dec. 2010. .
"Can Social Networking Sites Like Facebook Cause Stress?" Http://eleancer.co.cc. Web. 05 Dec. 2010. .
"Computer Eye Strain - Your Eyes Are Dying For a Break." Eye Doctor Directory, Find Eye Doctors by City State & Zipcode. Web. 05 Dec. 2010. .
Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan. 22 May 2010. Web. 05 Dec. 2010. .
"DAWN.COM | Pakistan | Facebook Page That Led to Pakistani Ban Removed." DAWN.COM | Home | Latest News, Pakistan, World, Business, Cricket and Multimedia. 22 May 2010. Web. 05 Dec. 2010. .
"FBI." Web. 05 Dec. 2010. .
Fletcher, Owen. "Chinese Uighur Conflict." Globe Hoppers 6 Continents 88 Countries 9 Iowans 1 Family. 14 Apr. 2009. Web. 05 Dec. 2010. .
"Global Time Spent Social Networking Rises 82%." MarketingCharts: Charts and Data for Marketers in Web and Excel Format. The Nielsen Company, 27 Jan. 2010. Web. 05 Dec. 2010. .
"Graphics MS." Graphics.ms | Chicago Marketing & Advertising | Chicago Web Design & Print Services Company | Brand Identity Design. Web. 05 Dec. 2010. .
Hope, Jenny. "One in Ten Adults in Danger from Obesity." Www.dailymail.co.uk. 25 Oct. 2010. Web. 05 Dec. 2010. .
"Internet Crime Complaint Center Takes 2 Millionth Report." U.S. Government Info - Resources. 26 Nov. 2006. Web. 05 Dec. 2010. .
"Mark Zuckerberg." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. 5 Dec. 2010. Web. 05 Dec. 2010. .
Ostrow, Adam. "Social Networking Dominates Our Time Spent Online [STATS]." Social Media News and Web Tips – Mashable – The Social Media Guide. Web. 05 Dec. 2010. .
"Psychological Effects Of Facebook." Article Dashboard Directory | Submit Articles | Search Find Free Content | Author Submission. Web. 05 Dec. 2010. .
"Psychological Effects Of Facebook." Article Dashboard Directory | Submit Articles | Search Find Free Content | Author Submission. Web. 05 Dec. 2010. .
Rik Myslewski. "UK Boffin: Social Networking Causes Cancer, Heart Attacks, Lupus, Dementia... • The Register." The Register: Sci/Tech News for the World. 20 Feb. 2009. Web. 05 Dec. 2010. .
"Social Networking Statistics 2010 | Graphics MS." Graphics.ms | Chicago Marketing & Advertising | Chicago Web Design & Print Services Company | Brand Identity Design. Web. 05 Dec. 2010. .
Staff, By Buzzle. "Take Advantage of Social Networking to Keep Kids Safe Online." Buzzle Web Portal: Intelligent Life on the Web. Web. 05 Dec. 2010. .
Whitcomb, Dan, and Alex Dobuzinskis. "Woman Cleared of Felonies in MySpace Suicide Case| Reuters." Business & Financial News, Breaking US & International News | Reuters.com. 26 Nov. 2008. Web. 05 Dec. 2010. .
"WHO | Obesity." Web. 05 Dec. 2010. .
Wintour, Patrick. "Facebook Et Al Risk 'infantilising ' the Human Mind | Media | Guardian.co.uk." Latest News, Comment and Reviews from the Guardian | Guardian.co.uk. 24 Feb. 2009. Web. 05 Dec. 2010. .
"World Internet Usage Statistics News and World PopulationStats." Internet Usage World Stats - Internet and PopulationStatistics. 30 June 2010. Web. 05 Dec. 2010. .

Cited: Bruxelles, Simon De, and Jack Malvern. "Social Network Sites Link to Town 's Seven Suicides - Times Online." The Sunday Times. 23 Jan. 2004. Web. 05 Dec. 2010. . "Can Social Networking Sites Like Facebook Cause Stress?" Http://eleancer.co.cc "Computer Eye Strain - Your Eyes Are Dying For a Break." Eye Doctor Directory, Find Eye Doctors by City State & Zipcode. Web. 05 Dec. 2010. . Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan "DAWN.COM | Pakistan | Facebook Page That Led to Pakistani Ban Removed." DAWN.COM | Home | Latest News, Pakistan, World, Business, Cricket and Multimedia. 22 May 2010. Web. 05 Dec. 2010. . "FBI." Web "Graphics MS." Graphics.ms | Chicago Marketing & Advertising | Chicago Web Design & Print Services Company | Brand Identity Design. Web. 05 Dec. 2010. . Hope, Jenny "Internet Crime Complaint Center Takes 2 Millionth Report." U.S. Government Info - Resources. 26 Nov. 2006. Web. 05 Dec. 2010. . "Mark Zuckerberg." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia "Psychological Effects Of Facebook." Article Dashboard Directory | Submit Articles | Search Find Free Content | Author Submission. Web. 05 Dec. 2010. . Rik Myslewski "Social Networking Statistics 2010 | Graphics MS." Graphics.ms | Chicago Marketing & Advertising | Chicago Web Design & Print Services Company | Brand Identity Design. Web. 05 Dec. 2010. . Staff, By Buzzle Whitcomb, Dan, and Alex Dobuzinskis. "Woman Cleared of Felonies in MySpace Suicide Case| Reuters." Business & Financial News, Breaking US & International News | Reuters.com. 26 Nov. 2008. Web. 05 Dec. 2010. . "WHO | Obesity." Web