Social Net'g

Social networking’s original purpose is to provide an interactive platform that allows people to communicate and stay connected. These technologies have been adapted to fit the needs of a variety of people. For corporations, one need that has been satisfied is recruiting. According to “Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting” by Frank Langfitt, LinkedIn has a network of 8 million professionals around the world including executives from all of the Fortune 500 companies. Businesses big and small have taken advantage of LinkedIn’s huge network to search for high-quality job candidates. This huge networking platform has simultaneously made the process easier for job seekers and recruiters giving both parties opportunities they otherwise wouldn’t have.

Social networking has benefited society in many more ways than just the example given above. By allowing people to communicate and share information, it has been able to bring people together regardless of backgrounds or location. In “Is MySpace good for Society? A Freakonomics Quorum”, by Stephen J. Duber, a group of knowledgeable professors are asked to discuss the pros and cons of social networking. The professors have a general consensus that social networking for the most part has been beneficial for our society because it has diversified the way we express ourselves and how accepting we are of the new and different. Of course, there is a “dark side” to social networking as well. Danah Boyd, Ph.D. candidate at the University of California-Berkeley, points out that while social media magnifies the good of our society, it does the same for the bad. As a result, Bullying, gossip, hate-speech are all put out into the open and is much more visible and painful for those involved.

For the future, I believe that social networking will continue to have the positive and negative sides. It would be impossible to completely eliminate the negatives but, we can instead use social media to help bring attention to important issues. Social networking is a powerful tool and if used correctly, we can create a community that can address issues we face rather than just staring at them on our screen.