Social Web - Research Paper Example

? Full Paper Introduction This is the age of globalization where world has become efficient in the context of robust communication around the world. The cost effective and instant communication over the digitized networks has left other technologies far too behind, thanks to the social networking which enable the humans to communicate in a surprising and innovative way. An idea is available by (Facinelli, 2009) which states it as “user-generated content or consumer-generated media”. A question comes to mind, what is social networking meant for? Its purpose is to enable people for creating a virtual social network to exchange ideas and thoughts with class mates, old friends, lost friends, relatives, and new friends. Social networking sites have advantages as well as disadvantages later to be discussed. The factors impacting on the society are interrelated to each other. The severity of the impact of these sites may vary from severity level 1 to severity level 3. Social networking sites facilitate people to create a public or private profile to share it with a group of people within an isolated system. Likewise, these ‘web based’ services offer opportunities to create a new relation. The first social network site was launched in 1997 that was named as SixDegrees.com. Since then, these sites offered innovation in relationship performances, impression management, privacy management, online and offline status of friends. However, study shows that there is no research on cultural disparity (Vitkauskaite, 2011). Social Networking Sites Statistics Over 700 billion minutes are spent by each user on ‘Facebook’ per month. More than 500 million active users are registered on face book. 50% of massive 500 million contributes to the log of active users on to ‘Facebook’ in every single day. One average user has 130 friends. Activity on ‘Facebook’ engages over 900 million objects that people interrelate with for example, (pages, groups, friends, events and community pages). One average user is coupled to 80 community events, pages and groups An average user creates 90 pieces of content activity each month including publishing photos, comments, ideas etc(Statistics, n.d). As per the number one social networking website ‘www.facebook.com’ statistics also includes the activity of users is “above 30 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each month. The Global Reach is in more than 70 translations available on the site About 70% of Facebook users are outside the United States and Over 300,000 users helped translate the site through the translations application. Moreover, Fig 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3 illustrated below, demonstrate the participation of genders, privacy and beliefs and behavioral tracking on ‘Facebook’. Fig 1.1(Retreived from (Hoy & Milne, 2010) Fig 1.2(Retreived from (Hoy & Milne, 2010) Fig 1.3(Retreived from (Hoy & Milne, 2010) These figures are incomparable to other social networking sites such as twitter has 175 million registered users and 95 million tweets are written each day (Roberts, 2011). Positive Impact of Social Networking Sites (SNS) Social networking sites (SNS) facilitate users to create new relationships. Continuous communication online strengthens relationships and gives opportunities for creative expressions in a collaborative way. The social networking sites provide free photo storage, blogging, games, invitations for participating friends and various services. The social networking sites provide common interest between people and proffer revelation to innovative ideas publishing around the globe and provide freedom of expression. Those people who have stammering problem while speaking can express their emotions and feeling to share with others in full confidence. Social networking sites also contributed people to make crucial decisions in their life. 60 million Americans are facilitated by the Internet for making one of the most crucial life decisions ("The Strength of Internet Ties, n.d). The decisions were made with the support of expert decision makers which includes changing career paths, buying a house, changing cars, motivating someone who is dealing with hard times of life, caring for a person who is ill and vice versa. The social networking sites also contributed to support the educational correspondence regarding student assignments, career counseling and college planning. Students are able to co ordinate with each other regarding multiple educational topics and suggestions. Students improve their visual, writing, reading and conflict resolution skills by discussing about issues on various matters with all level of students available around the globe. These features can be achieved by only connected to the Internet and registering to the free social networking sites. Students with low income can also utilize social networking sites services. Studies have shown that social networking sites have also increased quality of life. Social media can contribute via social networking sites which will be an alternative to a traditional way of communication. The social media portal is “is a resource that maps global social media, social networks and user generated content (UGC)” (About - mapping social media, social networks and UGC, n.d ). The social networking sites have minimum age requirements. For instance, ‘Myspace’ has an age restriction for the user to be minimum 14 years old in order to automate the privacy level for that specific user so that the user can only find contents while basic search suitable for his age group. The social networking sites are emphasizing to benefits users by classification of diseases, drug addiction, autism, alcoholism, weight loss and vice versa (Parameswaran, 2010). The goal is to extend the exposure of information provided by people who have cured or solved a particular problem from similar issues to the ones who are dealing with them currently (Parameswaran, 2010). Negative Impact of Social Networking Sites (SNS) Social networking sites share some negative effects on societies, as people tends to spend a lot of time on these sites. The time spent on these sites may led to experiencing less time for face-to-face interaction, which portrays a negative impact on a daily life (Social Networking ProCon.org n.d). The teenagers are not aware that the information and published material including pictures can be retrieved even after deletion from the social networking site. By over sharing, personal information may attract cyber criminals, burglars and even employers who can evaluate values of a person by reviewing comments on the site which may compromise the individual to lose his job. There is no credibility of the user authentication of what they are claiming to be on social networking sites. ‘Myspace’ has detected and removed 90,000 sex offenders from the site. As facebook, with such a huge number of registered users can also have sex offenders but has not claimed yet (MySpace removes 90,000 sex offenders - Technology & science - Security - msnbc.com). ‘Myspace’ was able to remove them but was not able to stop those users to make new accounts. Lot of students and teenagers are addicted of cyber bullying. The idea of cyber bullying is defined by (Gracie, 2010) as “Depending on the context of the remarks, they may even be interpreted as malicious or bullying. Words written on line can easily be retrieved and come back to haunt us in the future”. Impact of cyber bullying in society is immense as a woman named as Megan Meier created a relationship on MySpace with a fake profile of 16 year old boy. She was accommodated in Missouri, when she hanged herself after reading heart breaking messages. She is now considered as a victim of herself and referred as cyber bullying impersonator herself (Patrick, 2008). Moreover, a 49 year old lady was found to be guilty. The teenager killed herself after receiving taunting emails from the lady is also considered as a victim of cyber bullying (Mother faces jail after a guilty verdict on cyber-bullying. n.d). Likewise, the pentagon is also reviewing the use of social networking sites including Twitter, and Facebook that may link to security issues. Some departments of the Pentagon are observing the threats and have prohibited the use of these sites. Moreover, Mr. William Lynn has asked the Pentagon’s chief information officer Robert Gates, to construct a comprehensive threat assessment report on the entire department of defense, (Pentagon reviews social website use.2009). The action was taken due to threats associated with it. Probably the identity credibility is not on the optimal level for these social networking sites which is prompting questions to the United States department of defense. Inability to have real conversations is a major factor that is caused by using the social networking sites in children which can cause personality instability in terms of face to face communication and brain disorders. The fast pace of the sites may rewire the brain with repeated exposure because parts of the brain used for traditional, offline activities become underused (Social Networking ProCon.org, n.d). People using these social networking sites are addicted to social seclusion. Parents pay less attention to their children and spend less time together even when they are geographically not too far or living in the same house. This is because they are using the Internet instead of face to face communication with each other. Employees in an organization are facilitated by Internet connectivity. They spent most of the time by updating their profiles on Facebook, Twitter and MySpace several times a day. This is the reason why organizations are reluctant to restrict access to the social networking sites during office hours (5 problems with social networking in the workplace, n.d). Moreover, as the traffic on these sites increases, study was conducted by (Vicknair, Elkersh, Yancey, & Budden, 2010) on job considerations of employees. The study highlighted that people are aware of the fact that employers may review social networking sites for user profiles. Likewise, they tend to remove information, as they do not want employers to review their profiles that may lead to certain factors associated with hiring considerations. Moreover, people are reluctant to give their user credentials of social network sites that may facilitate employers for hiring a candidate. There approaches can create allegations on the natural usability factor of these sites, as the acquaintance of recruitment agencies that may exploit these sites may distract users by using these social web services for job searching and professional networking. Physical and logical Vulnerabilities These sites can be used to attack users vulnerable to security attacks such as, extracting sensitive information, hacking and installing Trojans on user systems. Users trust textual communication from these social networking sites more than emails. The security of these websites can be compromised anytime and can publish the communication or personal pictures on the web if breached. However, the integration of email filtering and spam protection is not available on social networks as compared to the traditional email software that is integrated with anti viruses and anti phishing scams. Users are unaware of the public nature of online profiles generating security risks to the personal and confidential data that is traded in for various purposes against cash. Social networking profiles are the best sources for cyber criminals to gather personal and social information that can be utilized to plot an identity theft. For instance; birth days, pet names, mothers' maiden names, secret questions, names of children can be revealed from the interest column of the user profile. By posting personal information, offline crime may result. For instance, an individual is discussing a vacation plan and the robbers on the other side planning for home robberies, discussing about the new laptop which the user has purchased along with the expensive cell phone, which can also result in street crimes. Conclusion Since 1977, these sites have transformed in to an innovative platform of connecting people together regardless of culture, religion, race etc. People can find old friends, colleagues, relatives and keep them updated by exchanging messages and information on their profiles. Consequently, these sites provide a collaborative platform for people to join in for sharing ideas, and thoughts by freedom of expression. The impact on society has certainly laid various advantages in terms of instant and cost effective communication. Discussion on topics of interest with sub ordinates new friends and relatives has changed the lifestyle in terms of better knowing about each other. Children can be familiar with the technology at the earlier stage and will learn how to publish data and upload pictures Study also reflected the contribution of these sites on major decisions that are discussed on a collaborative platform. Additionally, purpose of these social networking sites is to provide advanced information services and communication, in order to earn money. However, for achieving competitive advantage, these sites constantly upgrade services, design and functionality, in order to provide better services to the people. However, these sites share some negatives factors in addition. The impacts can be severe in terms of hurting one’s feeling via social bullying. The selling of information to the third party may also lead to the invasion of privacy which can also relate to Identity theft. The financial status of an individual can be revealed which can also be harmful. The ultimate goal is not to provide advance life for the society. The data collected on the databases of these websites is sold to companies for knowing their customers better or other third parties who may use it for earning money as well. Cookies stored on the computers are used to gather activities of the user, highlighting the likeness and detest associated with interest. There is no credibility that the data provided by these social networking sites to the advertising practices may comprise an invasion of privacy. However, privacy laws are now regulated in a better way, as compared to previously defined user privacy laws. References Roberts, D. (2011). Twitter by the numbers. (cover story). Fortune, 163(6), 68-69. MySpace removes 90,000 sex offenders - technology & science - security - msnbc.com Retrieved 8/4/2011, 2011, from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28999365/ns/technology_and_science-security/ "The Strength of Internet Ties | Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project "Web. 12/12/2010 . Gracie, D. (2010). Stop cyber bullying!" [sic]. South Carolina Nurse, 17(1), 4-4 About - mapping social media, social networks and UGC Retrieved 8/5/2011, 2011, from http://www.socialmediaportal.com/Content/About.aspx Patrick, R. (2008). Cyber harassment jury to be told of megan meier's suicide.St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MO). Statistics Retrieved 8/5/2011, 2011, from http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics Pentagon reviews social website use. (2009). Irish Times. 5 problems with social networking in the workplace Retrieved 8/5/2011, 2011, from http://www.information-management.com/specialreports/2009_165/social_networking_media-10016208-1.html Vitkauskaite, E. (2011). Cultural adaptation issues in social networking sites. Economics & Management, 16, 1348-1355. Clark, L., & Roberts, S. (2010). Employer’s use of social networking sites: A socially irresponsible practice. Journal of Business Ethics, 95(4), 507-525. doi:10.1007/s10551-010-0436-y Vitkauskaite, E. (2010). Overview of research on cross-cultural impact on social networking sites. Economics & Management, , 844-848. Vicknair, J., Elkersh, D., Yancey, K., & Budden, M. C. (2010). The use of social networking websites as A recruiting tool for employers. American Journal of Business Education, 3(11), 7-12. Hoy, M. G., & Milne, G. (2010). Gender differences in privacy-related measures for young adult facebook users. Journal of Interactive Advertising, 10(2), 28-45 Mother faces jail after guilty verdict on cyber-bullying. Australian, the, Facinelli, S. (2009). What the heck is "social media?". Franchising World, 41(7), 40. Social Networking ProCon.org. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://socialnetworking.procon.org/ Parameswaran, S. K. (2010). Preventive healthcare through social networking. Siliconindia, 13(6), 30-31. Read More