Social networking sites such as Friendster, Twitter and Facebook all vary slightly, yet one of the main feature they have is that they enable users to create a profile within the website to represent themselves and interact with other users using emails, instant messaging and other integrated communication channels within the site. The popularity and growth of social networking sites over the years has been colossal. Today, there are almost 1 billion active users and over 500 million mobile active users in Facebook. As technology of Web 2.0 improves and advances, social networking sites have a bigger impact on the society and human relationships, both negative and positive. However, I disagree with the statement as I feel that the benefits social networking sites have brought to its user outweighs the harms it has done.
Social networking site have made effective communication easier in the spread and conveying of ideas to raise awareness. It serves as a medium for people to share their thought and ideas with a large mass of people. An example is the Arab Spring, where hundreds of protestors in countries like Libya and Egypt harnessed the efficiency of communication through social networking sites by organising protests and convey their thoughts and ideas to large mass of group in order to raise awareness. Hence, social networking sites expedite the process of communication by conveying ideas to a large audience almost instantaneously.
In addition, social networking sites have acted as a bridging platform between the government and citizens. In recent trends, politicians across the world have used social networking sites to communicate with the people and establish stronger ties between the leadership and the populace. For instance, during last year General Elections in Singapore, the various contesting parties and candidates made good use of social networking sites such as Facebook