Social Networking: A boon or a bane?

“If Facebook were a country, it would now be the 6th most populous in the world.”

- InsideFacebook.com

Advent of Internet has brought about a revolution in the fields of information exchange and other web based features which were never thought of even 2 decades ago. Mark Zukerberg, CEO and chairman of Facebook, of was one of the fore-fathers of Social Networking. While at Harvard he was considered a programming prodigy and had done a lot of productive work towards developing many sites. These were very useful to the students as they were able to form a number separate study and discussion groups. Well, among all the productive work that he did he did not leave an opportunity for having fun and thus was the creation of the infamous “Facemash” and he created that, as his roommate had said, “just for fun”. Harvard had to shut down this site because it had rendered the Harvard servers to a very slow state hampering internet speeds for the students. He dropped out of Harvard in 2004.

Not all but some of the advantages and disadvantages of socializing are described in the lines to come. One of the greatest advantages of Social Networking Sites is the amount of people you can meet and you can be found by. It is one of the best tools for anybody to keep in touch with long lost friends or family that may be thousands of kilometres away. It has turned out to be a good tool towards interacting with new people. They also provide a very good platform for promoting one’s business as well as talent. With little luck, people of talent can be found by firms that are recruiting. It is also very helpful for shy people for whom interacting through these sites makes it easier for them to later on interact with the respective person in actually meeting them which would rather not be possible if these did not exist and so it helps those shy people to overcome their weakness. To any Ying there is always a Yang. Similarly, social networking sites have both pros and cons. The greatest concern in these socializing sites is the security concern. While creating one’s profile in many of these sites users provide information which puts them at a risk of impersonation which might be done and if so by any person with criminal records then it can lead to a lot of trouble for the respective user whose identity was impersonated. A lot of the material that is posted in these websites are not suitable for children and might even corrupt the morality of the future youth.

Many parents claim that socializing sites are very bad for their children as it makes them more unsociable in situations when they actually have to interact in public yet there are others who think that these sites help their children to stay off substance abuse but continue with socializing with others. Whether socializing sites are good or bad is still under speculation and only time will speak of how constructive or destructive it is.