The Social Networking era Post # 6

                                             The Social Networking Era Post # 6

From the very beginnning I have been writing about the importance that the social networking medias has on the society. It is undeniable that all of the popular social networking websites has become a part and parcel for the technology users. Despite having so many positive impacts there are also critics about these websites. As the popularity of the social networking media is growing enormously, mass awarness about the negative impact of using these websites is growing around the world. In my discussion, today I will talk about the negative impacts that these social networking medias has on the society.

If we are asked to tell some of the negative impacts of the social networking websites then what will be our answers? I catagorize the negative impact of these websites into two part. One is social impact and  the other is psychological impact. First I will talk about the negative social impacts. It is true that social netwroking sites like facebook, twitter, youtube etc. is a commonly used tool to bring people closer. Instead of bringing people closer sometimes these websites create distance between individuals. As a result being too much dependent on the social networking sites people become addicted to it. Sometimes the addiction is too severe that we can hardldy think about any moment of diconnection from this websites. Instead of having interactive connections with real friends the users find it more comfortable to be involved with their virtual friends. Most of the time these friends are unknown to them. It is always amazing to have new friends but as a result of putting too much attention to the friends who are  unknown to us we have less attention to the friends who are around us. It creates a communication gap between the friends. As a result the person who is too much involved with social networking becomes lonely after a certaing period of time. When we find that our virtual friends are not avilable online and also our real friends are not around us we feel extremely depressed.  We often surf these websites, put our status there, see who commented on our status, see who liked or disliked it, upload our pictures, see who followed us, play games etc. A vast amount of our valuable time is spent in order to do so. As a result the we the students have less time to concentrate on our studies. Studies shows that students who are extremely involved in using social networking websites are more likely to have a lower grade in the exam. So it has a far reaching negative impact on our professional life because our educational background plays an important role for our professional success. Social networking media is one of the prime reasons for increasing divorce rate around the world. According to ABC news-“ A third of all divorce filings in 2011 contained the word “Facebook”, according to Divorce Online. And more than 80 percent of U.S. divorce attorneys say social networking in divorce porceedings is on the rise, according to American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers”(Sydney Lupkin). Facebook as well as other social networking websites is a very heaven for the cyber criminals. They often steal personal information of the users and then use it for their illegal interest. As a result the users become a victim of identitiy theft. Few days ago a friend of mine told me that someone hacked his facebook account and then uploaded some explicit photos on behalf of his account. My friend didn’t know what to do in that situation, so he permanently closed his account and stopped using facebook. These are just a few of the negative social impacts of using facebook. There are many more.

Now let’s begin the negative psychological impacts the social networking medias may have on it users. According to American Psychological Association-“Pre-teens and teenagers who use technology like the Internet and video games, on a regular basis will have more stomach aches, sleeping problems, anxiety and depression. Teens who use Facebook may show narcisisitic tendencies and young adults show more signs of other psychological disorders, including antisocial behaviors, mania and aggressive tendencies. Daily overuse of media and technology has a negative effec on the health of all children, pre-teens and teenagers by making them more prone to anxiety, depression, and other psychological disorders, as well as by making them more susceptible to future health problems”(OneIndiaNews). Here it is needed to be mentioned that the social networking websites are not responsible for such problems actually the “overuse” of these websites is responsible. Therefore such negative impacts can easily be avoided just by reducing the time used to surf these websites. But the Irony is that these websites are so appealing to the new generations that they can hardly keep their eyes on something else.

In real life everithing has both positive and negative sides. It is like the two side of the same coin. We can not think of any thing that only has good effect on the society. Everything that is positive for the society has also some negative issues involved with it. If we are aware of the proper use of social networking web sites then we can hope to get the benefit for what it was invented. We only need little conciousness. Thus we can hope to use these tools to keep in touch with our beloved friends and family and keep ourselves away from trouble.

                                                                Work Cited

Lupkin,Sydney; ABC World News, May 24,2012.URL: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/facebook-relationship-status/story?id=16406245#.UBpWtPZbf08

OneIndia News; August 9,2011.URL: http://news.oneindia.in/2011/08/09/tech-negative-positive-effects-of-facebook-part-1.html

The social Networking era Post # 5

I can not but resist myself from telling you a very interesting story of my life. For me it is not only interesting but also amazing while for you it may be neither. Anyway I think I should start. Shouldn’t I?

I was then a 6^th or 7^th grade student. I can’t exactly remember what it was. That is not important at all. I was the second boy of the class because my friend Opu was the first boy. At that time Opu was not my friend actually. He was just my classmate. I think everybody in the class noticed me that I am very calm and quiet in the class. I almost never respond to any question of the professor. When I was a high school student I was never like this at all. So, me and Opu always used to have a competition between ourselves to become the first boy in the class. Once he left the school in order to get admitted to one of the best schools of my country. I felt a sigh of relief because there was nobody ahead of me. Unfortunately he didn’t get chance to get admitted in the school he desired because of his weight. So he came back to the old school with a hell lot of frustration for me. I went back to my previous position of second boy. Opu was a way better student than me because he was hard working, he was smart, he was meritorious and good looking. He had the ability to lead the whole class. Everyone of the class accepted his leadership and the teachers adjudged him as the class captain. In my country we have tutorial centers where we have the opportunity to understand the course topics outside the classroom under the close observation of the tutor. In a typical classroom there used to be about 70 to 80 students, so it was always overcrowded while in the classes of tutorial centers there used to be not more than 15 students. Most often we used to go to the tutorial center as a group. So me and Opu went to the best tutorial center of the locality in order to defeat each other. We used to go to the same tutorial center after the school. Our school uniform was a white shirt and a navy blue pant. One day at the tutorial center we were busy in gossiping with each other while our tutor went outside to take a break. For some weird reason I purposely sketched a huge black line with my black ball point pen on Opu’s white shirt. Opu became very angry because of this and started yelling at me. He was so annoyed with me that he started punching in my face before I realized anything. I tried my best to protect myself with counter attack. Opu was stronger and taller than me. Soon it turned as an one sided battle. He started throwing me in the floor while I kept him punching. It was like a wrestling between us. Our friends tried their best to stop the fight. They failed.  By the mean time our teacher entered into room and saw us fighting. So he ordered us to stop the fight. We are not supposed to disobey the order of the teacher because it is considered as a sin in our country. So we stopped the fight. Our teacher listened about the whole issue and ordered me to say sorry to Opu because I was the main culprit. So, I said sorry to Opu but I was determined that I will never talk to Opu again. I decided to leave the school in order to get rid of meeting with Opu. After the fight, few days passed by. My short tempered brain started cooling down as well as Opu. We started talking with each other. At first it was just limited to hy, hallow. Later on I realized my fault and said sorry to Opu from the bottom of my heart. Opu also told me sorry for beating me up badly for my silly mistake. We became friends. We became the best friend of each other.

When we were graduated from 8^th grade to 9^th grade Opu’s father moved from that town to the city. So Opu, his mother and his younger brother also moved with his father. We promised with each other that we will always keep in touch with each other and we will meet each other from time to time. At the biginning we used to have phone conversation every week. Later on for some unexpected reason we started getting disconnected. Opu changed his cell phone number and I didn’t collect his number. After a course of time we hardly talked to each other because of the discontinuation of our communication.

When I came to New York about three years ago I was first introduced to the internet for the first time because information technology was scarce in the suburban of my country. From some friends of mine I came to know about facebook and they told me fascinating stories about facebook. So I opened an account on facebook and started looking for my friends. In one beautiful morning on the right hand corner of my facebook wall page I saw the suggestion about friends from facebook. The profile picture of one of the suggested facebook users draw my attention because it was familiar to me. So I opened his account to see who he was. I was surprised to see that it was my friend Opu. I sent a friend request to Opu without making any delay. I started thinking how the admin of the facebook came to know that Opu was my friend. Do they know magic? Later on I discovered that there assumption was simple. Opu was the friend of one of my facebook friend’s friend. Because Opu is my friend’s friend’s friend. Then there is a possibility to assume that we may know each other. Facebook just assumed that and it became true. Opu accepted my friend request and was very glad for our reunion through facebook. Our friendship was hindered because of the distance between us but facebook eliminated the gap between us and bring us as close as we were before.

Now me and Opu are friends again. We often communicate with each other through phone calls. If not, then through facebook. It will be injustice to facebook if I do not call it a friend of mine. Only a friend can reunite a friend with another friend, no one else. 

The social Networking era blog post # 4

                                                      The social networking era blog post # 4

                In my previous blogpost I discussed about some of the popular Social Networking sites and a brief history of these websites. Today I am going to discuss the social impacts of these websites. So far from the previous discussion we already know that these social networking sites connected so many people around the world that it is now an indivisible part for all the computer users around the world.

            To discuss the social impact of the social networking websites we are not required to go far to gather information. Remember the “ Occupy Wall Street” protest in August,2011. A small group of protestors expresssing their girevances about economoic inequities started their protest against corporate corruption and the policy to save these corporate corruptors. What happened next? Inspired by the populist message known as “Occupy Wall Street”, more than 200 Facebook pages and Twitter accounts were created in more than 12 cities seeking volunteers to spread the message and the protest around the country. About 900 events were set up on Meetup.com and blog posts and photographs from all over the country were popped up on the WeArethe99Percent blog on Tumblr from people who see themselves as the victims of not only the sagging economy but also economic injustice. Through Facebook pages and Twitter accounts protestors conveyed their message to the general people and the protest became a movementand everyone knows the rest of the story.These Facebook and Twitter pages motivated people from all over United States and the restof the world and hepled the protestors to get united( New York Times).  Why don’t we recall Arab Spring? Remember what happened in Tahrir Square in early 2011. Egypt’s Internet activists played a key role to motivate thousands of Egyptians to come and join their protest in Tahrir Square through sending a Facebook invitation. To protest the demonstration the then Mubarak government blocked Facebook and shut down technology. But nothing was good enough to stop this protestors to get united. Because the social networking media already sent the message of the protestors to the people who were oppressed by the autocracy of Mubarak government. The protest was so massive that the autocratic Mubarak government had to fall through blood shed. As a result Egypt got rid of the steam roller of Mubarak government and his corruption and the protestors formed a democratic government through fair election(BBC News). These are some of the instances where these social medias played a key role to motivate people to get united.

            Now it can hardly be denied that these social networking medias have same importance like print or broadcasting media. One may or may not watch TV news or Newspaper everyday. But everyone who has a Facebook or Twitter account, opens their account and notice the updates from their friends and different group pages at least once everyday. Therefore it will not be surprising to say that Social Networking Medias are getting more importance than the traditional news medias.

Sources:

Amr Gharbeia, BBC News, February7,2011

Jennifer Preston, The New York Times, October 8,2011.

The Social Networking Era Blogpost# 3 and Paper# 1

During last two decades the use of the Internet became very popular and widespread. With the continuous efforts Internet developers made it possible to spread the magic of Internet all over the world. As a result general users from all around the world gained access to the Internet in a easy and relatively cheaper way.

At the beginning the purpose of using the Internet was very simple. Searching information on the web, mailing personal and business messages to each other, downloading music and vedio were some of the very common uses ofInternet at the beginning. But there is asaying that “ Necessity is the mother of invention”. So the necessity of the Internet users added new dimension on Internet usage.

As I mentioned earlier, Internet brought a revolution in communication. At the beginning various e-mail service providers like Google, Yahoo, msn, AOL, Live etc. used to provide mailing service to the users of it. The e-mail service users wereableto send messages, pictures, music, vedio from one service provider to another. But they were unable do instant messaging and vedion chatting with each other due to different platform of email service providers. Social networking website developers came forward with a brilliant Idea to eliminate this problem by enabling email service users to come to a same platform.

Right now it is difficult to say how many socialnetworking sites areavailable on the Internet. But some of the social networking websites are very popular and has a huge number of members who are enjoying the various features provided by these websites. The top social networking websites are: Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Linked In, My Space, Google Plus etc. Right now the most popular Social networking site is Facebook which has almost 750,000,000 monthly visitors(eBizMBA Rank). In Facebook users are able to share their own opinion, upload pictures, play online games, upload music and vedios etc. Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg, former Harvard Student in February 2004 with an intention to serve College and University students(Yadav). Billions of Facebook users from all around the world are using facebook and showing their intelectual excillence by uploading blogs, pictures and creative projects. Another very popular social networking website is My Space which was founded in August 2003 by employees of eUniverse, mostly known as an Internet marketing company(Stenovec). It almost has 250,000,000 monthly visitors. Linked In was foundedin 2002 with an Idea for a proffessional networking site by the co-founder of the website, Reid Hoffman. It was launced on the web in May 2003. Linked In has almost 135 million members in 200 contries(www.omaha.com).

As we can see the number of users using these websites for social networking we can easily assume the impact of these websites in the society. These websites are an amazing platform for users  from all around the world to come up with their own views regarding world politics, economics, culture, social trends etc. These websites made the social communication easy and fast. People are getting connected with each other through these websites after a continuous period of disconnection. Students are able to discuss about their course materials and different topics of their study with their classmates. But there are disputes also about these websites. Because of some bad users, these websites often become a place where cyber crime is torrential. Students pass hour after hour chatting with their friends instead of studying. As a result there is often a negative impact on their study. People often become a victim of Identity theft through these websites.

There is nothing in the world that does not have any dispute. The usefullness of anything depends upon the usage of it. If we use anything for positive purpose then it is positive, If we do not then it is negative. These Social networking websites have given us a great opportunity to keep in touch with our dearest one and have tremendous fun. Despite several negative impacts of these social networking sites the positive aspects of these sites are undeniable.

Work Cited

Stenovec, Timothy; http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/29/myspace-history-timeline_n_887059.html#s299496&title=August_2003_Myspace

Yadav, Sid; http://mashable.com/2006/08/25/facebook-profile/

http://www.omaha.com/article/20111204/MONEY/712049929

The social Networking era post # 2

The other  day I was talking about the Internet. Before proceeding on I think It is required to go back to the history of the Internet and talk about how Internet has gained so much popularity and become widespread to the general people.The Internet is a worldwide system of connecting computers with each other with a purpose of linking all computers through a general set of protocol. The Internet has a massive storage area to store billions of information from all around the world and those information can be accecessed by anyone from anywhere in the world just by going through a web link.Today we enjoy the information technology sitting anywhere ranging from our bedroom to our office room through using Internet. But it was not as easy in the early 1960s (when the idea of developing Internet was  evloved) as it is today. The Idea to develop Internet was evolved with the idea of developing computers in 1950s. In 1960 Internet was developed with a purpose of sharing information  on research and development in Scintific and Military field. The development of internet began with point-to-point communication between Mainframe computers and terminals, expanded to point-to-point connections between computers and then early research into packet switching. Packet switched networks such as APARNET, Mark I at NPL in the UK, CYCLADES, Merit Network, Tymnet, and Telenet were developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s using various types of protocols. The APARNET in particular led to the development of protocols for internetworking, where multiple separate networks could be joined together into a network of networks.[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet]. In the earlier stage Internet was extremely expensive and as a result general users were unable to access Internet. But later on with the development of Fiber Optical Cable Internet started becoming cheaper and as a result we, the general users of internet with an intention to use Internet for everyday use like watching movies, listening music, reading newspaper online,shopping online, social networking and doing some kind of research became able to access the Internet. Now the Internet works with extreme speed than it used to do before, now it is more availble and ofcourse more easy. We can not but thank to those great people of great ideas whose briliant vision helped the whole world to come closer and remove all the gaps through the Internet. Now we often use the term Global village to specify how all the countries of the world got rid of the communication barrier and became able to share their own culture with each other and it is only because of nothing else but the Internet.

The Social Networking era.

            Human being cannot live alone. That means to live in the society we need the company of someone else. From the very beginning of human civilization the process of creating relationship with one another in order to create a complete harmony and a bond among the was done through following different approaches that we learnt from the history. The necessity to create relationship, to create a bond, to live together, to care and to be carted  is called the sociological need according to Abraham Maslow which is required to be fulfilled after the physiological need ( the need for food, shelter, clothing etc.) is fulfilled. Sociological need has almost the same importance like Physiological need, because without fulfilling the sociological need human being can never enjoy the glory of being born as human being. To justify the truth we can assume a society where there is no relationship among its members, no one loves anyone, no one cares anyone and all the members are alone. What we will see that there is no bond in the society and as a result there is no society at all. Because the sociological need of the members of this society is fulfilled they cannot think of fulfilling their other needs that are required to adorn their life with all other amazing opportunities of mother earth.

            From the history we learnt how human being created relationship not only among society members but also with people from other societies. Different generation used different approaches in order to create a bond. In the very beginning of human civilization when technology had no advancement, opportunities were scarce human had very little access to the area around them to communicate with people to keep their relationship alive. As a result if someone around them was moved from one place to another it was very difficult to communicate with them unless they met each other in their life time. Some people trained birds like pigeon to carry their message to their dearest one that was a solution for them to keep in touch with their dearest persons. But it was not available for ever one. Necessity is the mother of invention. So people started inventing new techniques in order to communicate with the people around them. The invention of wheel brought a revolution in this regard. The mailing system was invented as a result. So people started sending letters and messages to their dearest one through post office. But it was not good enough because the time that was required to send these messages was too long. As a result Telegram, Telegraph, Telephone, Cellphone was invented. Now we are living in the Internet age where everything is extremely fast and easy. Even someone from the third world, who never accessed Internet, is asked to tell about the Internet will undoubtedly say that Internet has enabled us to communicate with the farthest corner of the world within the twinkling of our eye. Internet has become a synonym for speed. It has given us an amazing opportunity to communicate with our beloved one and create a strong social network.