Social Networing - Research Paper Example

Social Networking. enter the Number or College 14th December, Part Introduction Social Networking, a well known practice of expanding business and personal contacts in day-to-day life, has become one of the most popular ways to share information, common interests, and beliefs and to communicate with one another. Social networking practice was started in 1994 when World Wide Web companies like Geocities.com and Tripod.com began their services to unite people who had common interest. The early social networking practices were focused on bringing people to a common platform by using chat rooms. With the advanced information technology, the social networking practices have become more viral in nature. Social networking activities have started impacting people in various ways. This research paper describes about how social networking impacts globalization, professionalism, education and youth culture and business promotions. This paper also describes about positive and negative aspects of social networking on human lives in this contemporary world. Part. 2: Literature Review According to a recent research study, there are nearly 200 active social networking sites available on World Wide Web as on 2011. These sites act as communities that help one person to find another person who shares a common interest. This clearly elaborates how people depend on social networking for each and every small activity. When a person socializes, he or she will meet various unknown people to share information with a common interest. The famous social networking sites like Facebook, Myspace and Twitter make it easier to contact friend’s friends on internet. The primary aim of social networking is to expand the contact base by connecting to various people. Almost all social networking sites try to build their platform towards this common goal. May be the purpose of connecting an individual differs from one social networking site to another but ultimately it is all about connecting to people. For instance, LinkedIn will be used by people who love to develop their professional contacts whereas SparkLives will be used by people who share a common interest, healthy living. Likewise, there are numerous other social networking platforms that are dedicated to a particular domain. People who understand the purpose of networking would get benefit from these dedicated communities or networking sites. 2.1: Social Networking- Globalization Globalization is making world smaller by breaking country barriers and social networking fueling this globalization in various ways. No matter what, the growth of international activity has been staggering for last 10 years due to globalization (Garrett, 2000, 950- 953). Globalization is what making global economy much stronger. With the increasing social networking activities for past 10 years, the world has become much smaller as people from various countries interact and share information on a single platform. The other way to look at social networking fuels globalization is the reaching ability of the advertisements. Unlike traditional promotional tool, social networking tools help companies to reach wide range of customers throughout the globe. Language has always been a barrier for globalization. With the introduction of unique codes by various social networking sites like Twitter, the process of globalization became much easier. For instance, the words used in twitter, which is considered to be one of the extensively used social networking sites across, made people to understand the language in simple terms (Faulnker and Horn, 2008, pp. 157-183). The words like Lol, OMG and J/K used by Chinese people helps Americans to understand the feeling of expressions and vice versa. So, Social networking is fueling globalization indirectly. 2.1: Social Networking – Education Social networking has become a popular practice to share information on a common platform where people can develop increased amount of awareness. Platforms like LinkedIn help people to find better employment by linking with high class professionals worldwide. The Digital Youth Project conducted by University of California and University of South California revealed that the social networking throws wide range of opportunities such as improving technical skills and explore interests (Goff, 2009). According to the Tynes (2007), the people who have access to social networking sites will come to know world events within no time. He said that the media-savvy people, who used to be busy in gathering data traditional way, has got the opportunity to, know the world issues and events immediately and it is a good sign (Tynes, 2007, p.575-584). Social Networking is perfect example for collaboration. Most of the social networking platforms help people to connect and interact on a non-physical level as there are no country and language boundaries. All an individual need is having an internet connection. The access to the knowledge is encourages both formal and informal education, which is necessary for today’s youth. People who have access to social networking sites use latest technologies such as creating blogs, micro sites to share the information and unload videos. Though most of the people do not realize the knowledge they are gaining in terms of technology usage, effectiveness in asking questions and offering evidence. The famous book, Wikinomics written by Williams and Tapscott (2007) described this in a much better and clearer way. According to the authors, world has now become a smaller place where only connected people will survive. Humans cannot survive alone and hence they have to communicate with one another therefore, communication is the most important element of life nowadays (Tapscott and Williams, 2007). 2.3: Social Networking – Youth Culture These days, college students cannot wait to see their friends’ status on social networking sites. Social networking sites have got a lot to offer for young students but it also depends on the type of social networking sites they are using. There are numerous sites that are specially designed to share knowledge on specific subject or interest. Most of the youth are addicted to social networking these days and without any doubt, Facebook is the leader of social networking domain on World Wide Web. Nearly 60 percent of adults use social networking site and visit their profile at least twice a week (Schwanke, 2011). Social networking sites help students finding better collages, career opportunities with increased network base. The communities used by companies and collages help students know how popular a collage or a company is. It is a kind of best viral marketing that helps both consumers and companies. It is very simple to know the reputation of a person or an organization on social networking sites. Of course, there are negative impacts of social networking sites on youth. Most of the parents complain that children are addicted to social networking sites and ignoring their studies. So, limiting a student’s usage of social networking sites would definitely help and it can be done by encouraging them to use only specific sites that help them grow in the career. 2.4: Social Networking- Professionalism Today, social networking has become a tool for promotions in the market. In 2008-2009, most of the marketers were uncertain about how social marketing benefits organizations (Sexsmith and Robert, 2011). Though, social networking is a hot topic among youth and corporate professionals, most of the marketing managers are yet to determine the return on investment on promotional activities took place on social networking sites. Several companies are started spending huge sums on social network marketing but yet to realize the fruits. The only change we could see from 2008 to 2011 is that companies started spending money on social networking to promote their products. Probably, it may take some time to realize the return on investment. There are several reasons behind companies not using social networking to promote the products. Companies are more worried about employees disclosing confidential information to their competitors. The low return on investment is because of spending less time and money on promoting services or products on social space. According to Nobel (2011), assistant professor at Harvard Business School, “most of the professionals are scary about losing the identity that they built for over years and this might be the reason behind most professionals did not use social networking until recent”. But, now, with the advanced technologies and security tools, social networking sites are trying to provide numerous options that can secure the identity of a professional. According to Schwanke (2011), who did an interview of Shama Kabani found out that marketing via social networking sites are the most popular, common and effective way to market products. It is welcomed by youngsters, middle-aged, kids and professionals. While surfing on the internet one finds something of his interest and clicks on the website to gain information. He then buys the products or at least gets to know about it. It is a very helpful form of marketing. According to the interview it was derived that marketing plans should be made for online marketing and promotions should also be launched on the social networking first. It has now become the most important forms of marketing as it is more powerful than posters because a large number of audiences can see it round the globe. These days, nobody needs to meet an expert in person to get an advice. Social networking has been doing the magic of bringing a patient-doctor or student-teacher together so that the solution for a problem will be then and there itself. Social networking was popular in youth till 2008-2009 but professionals and companies realized the advantages of social networking very recently. Most of the professionals interact on LinkedIn to know the better career opportunities and to ensure the job details reached the concerned person. 2.5: Positive and Negative Aspects of Social Networking The major negative aspect of social networking is that it can be additive, especially, in youth culture. As per a recent survey, people who spends more time on social networking sites does not sleep well and fail to prioritize the things in a daily life. Students are more prone to addict to the social networking sites as they are immature to understand the impending threat of over using social networking sites. There are people who argue that spending good amount of time on social networking is important for students to enhance skill sets. They say social network addiction is a myth. In fact, in the famous book, Hanging Out, Messing Around, Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media, the author, Ito (2010), mentioned that spending more time on social networking helps younger generation to equip with required skill sets in this contemporary world ( Ito, 2009, p.55-60). Social networking is very important for teens in today’s world as it has become the source for friends, like-minded people, information and new technology. Unless teens spend time on social networking sites, they will take a back seat in this competitive world. It is the responsibility of the parents to monitor with whom their children are talking on a regular basis. By taking a couple of precautions, parents can allow teens to use social networking platforms widely to increase the contact base and to share the information (Goff, 2009). Sharing too much information, which is confidential, leads to big controversies. There are numerous of examples of these controversies we can see from an individual level to celebrity level. Most of the people lose their job due to posting some unnecessary information that affects the ethics and moral values of organization. Goff (2009) also described that an important rule which helps people who use Facebook. Knowing who is tagging you in a photo is very important as most of the photos contain unflattering behavior. Posting more personal information on social networking platform makes an individual vulnerable. Especially, young girls need to be very careful about giving away personal information on social networking sites. Though social networking platforms help to share information and build contacts, it is very important keep an eye on the security issues. Part. 3: Conclusion Social Networking has become mandatory for any individual in today’s digital environment. It does not matter if you are an individual or an organization, increasing contact base would help in sharing information or knowing market trends. Social networking is not only about updating your status on regular basis but also a promotion tool that helps to market your skill sets or your products. As discussed in the literature review, there are nearly 200 social networking sites; some of them are dedicated to photo, music and video sharing and some are dedicated to information sharing on a specific domain. Finding a social network group that enhances your skill sets in your desired domain will fetch the results. For instance, if you are looking for a job opportunity, professional network like LinkedIn helps you to find a suitable job. Of course, there are myths that social networking spoils youth, especially college and school going children but the threat can be minimized by regular monitoring of parents on what children do on social networking sites. When you are living in a technology driven world, you just need to adopt the latest technology and try to take the front seat in the competition. Social networking offers the same by offering a platform for knowledge transfer. Part. 4: Works Cited Tynes. B., M. "Internet Safety Gone Wild? Sacrificing the Educational and Psychosocial Benefits of Online Social Environments", Journal of Adolescent Research, November, (2007): 22, p.575-584. Schwanke, C. “Getting Started in Social Media Marketing ; An interview with Shama Kabani”, LoveToKnow, (2011). Web. 14 December 2011. Williams, A., Tapscott, D. “Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything”, (2007). Web. 14 December 2011. Sexsmith, J., Robert, A., “Social Networking: The Corporate Value Proposition”, Ivey Business Journal, (2011). Goff, K., J. “Social Networking Benefits Validated”, The Washington Time, (2009). Ito, M. “Hanging out, messing around, and geeking out : kids living and learning with new media”, Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press, (2010), p. 55-60. Garrett, G. “The causes of Globalization”, Yale University, (2000), p. 950- 953. Web. 14 December 2011 . Horn, S., S., Faulnker, D. “Understanding Global Strategy”, Cengage Learning, (2010), p. 157-183. Nobel, C. “Are we thinking too little, too much?”, Harvard business School, (2011). Web. 14 December 2011 < http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6630.html>. Read More