Social Networking

Social Networking has been utilized in many different ways. The idea of social networks were to be helpful but it can also be harmful. In the professional world, it has become a useful tool for networking and maintaining relationships between other professionals. Most people use it for the simple purpose of communicating with one another because of its convenience. With all these positive benefits of using social networks, it can also be detrimental to society.

The benefits of social networking include:

1. Providing and offering job opportunities
2. Crowdfunding
3. Promoting or spreading awareness of news, events, or advertisement efficiently
4. Helping to improve relationships and maintaining relationship among friends and acquaintances
5. Allowing opportunities for open-discussions about various topics
6. Finding students for extracurricular activities and/or clubs

Along with these benefits, there is also a “dark side” to social networking such as:

1. Loss of user-privacy
2. Bad effects on productivity levels of employees and students
3. A rise of false and/or misleading information
4. More prone to viruses and hacking
5. People becoming less sociable face-to-face (more dependent on social networks)

Social networking is a great tool to utilize for purposes like company recruiting and job-seekers. For example, LinkedIn is a social media platform that enables users connect professionally. According to the article “Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting,” Frank Langfitt discusses about how companies have recruiters who use social networking to search for potential job candidates. Websites such as LinkedIn offer candidates’ information all in one place for recruiters to filter through.

Another example of a benefit of social networking is an ability to allow shy and introverted individuals to connect and express themselves with others. In the article “Antisocial Networking” by Hilary Stout, “some researchers believe that the impersonal nature of texting and online communication may make it easier for shy kids to connect with others.”

I believe that social networking definitely has a lot of perks that definitely outweigh the “dark side.” It has become an ongoing thing in the background of our lives. We have become very dependent and learned to utilize social networking in the most various ways.