How Does Social Networking Affect People’s Lives?

The rapid growth of technology in our society has become more dominant than it was in the 17th and 18th century. Today, technology is used for almost everything in our day to day lives. But the most common usage of technology is for communication and industrialization. However, every good thing has its disadvantage if it is over used, and since technology has become very dominant, it is used by both young and older people but more predominant among the youth of the today. Even more, technology has brought about social networking such as Facebook, Twitter, my space, piazza.com, instagram, tango, and last but not the least texting. According to socialnetworking.procon.org, “47% of American adults used social networking sites like

The first problem with social networking is that it takes away the aspect of face-to-face social interaction. When people have the access to social networking, they communicate through these means rather than traditional methods, including phone calls, letters, and even e-mails. We are able to take the easy way out by talking to people through Facebook, twitter, text messaging and many other convenient, yet less personal means of communication. Social networking may be convenient when time and distance are issues, but it simply is not the same and cannot replace phone calls and face-to-face communication (Coyle 15). Many people see the convenience aspect of social networking and overlook the fact

In July 2012, Americans spent a total of 121.1 billion minutes on social networking sites (procon.org). Social networking has become a big part of people’s lives today. According to a December 2012 Nielson “Social Media Report”, 20% of time spent on a home computer is on social media while 30% of mobile Internet time is spent on social networking sites (procon.org). Sixdegrees.com, which ran from 1997-2001, was the first ever social networking site. Now there has been many different social media sites such as, Friendster, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.

* What makes social network sites unique is not that they allow individuals to meet strangers, but rather that they enable users to articulate and make visible their social networks. This can result in connections between individuals that would not otherwise be made, but that is often not the goal, and these meetings are frequently between "latent ties" (Haythornthwaite, 2005) who share some offline connection. On many of the large SNSs, participants are not necessarily "networking" or looking to meet new people; instead, they are primarily communicating with people who are already a part of their extended social network. To emphasize this articulated social network as a critical organizing feature of these sites, we label them "social network sites."

Social networking is a fairly new phenomenon over the last two decades. As with any upcoming technology, the academic community has in turn tried to understand how it will affect our lives as a society. On a more relevant scale, how this kind of progress affects our immediate community. This paper will attempt to argue that since community is an ever evolving concept, social networking today acts as an extension of it in terms of communication and facilitation of ideas, rather than an independent social structure that is neither detrimental nor additive to our current constructs of community.

Social network sites (SNSs) such as such as Friendster, CyWorld, and MySpace allow individuals to present themselves, articulate their social networks, and establish or maintain connections with others (Ellison, 2007). These sites could be used for work related situation, romance, connecting with individuals with shared interest, or creating a connection amongst college students. Facebook enables its users to present themselves in an online profile, accumulate ‘‘friends’’ who can post comments on each other’s pages, and view each other’s profiles (Ellison, 2007). Individuals can write on the wall of friends, send private message, comment on posts, as well as chat via instant messaging. Much of the early research on online communities assumed that individuals using these systems would be connecting with others outside their pre-existing social group or location, liberating them to form communities around shared interests, as opposed to shared geography (Ellison, 2007).

Society is constantly changing and will continue to change in the future. The change is predictable because people change their ideas, routines, and views frequently. One of the topics that is typically brought up when discussing the influences on how society is changing, is social networking. There are two sides to every story. One side of the effects of social networking is that it is beneficial to society by informing people on particular situations in the world and on current important events. The other side views social networking as dangerous and drama filled. While there are benefits and dangers to social networking's effects on society, I will argue that social networking has changed society more negatively than positively.

Within this essay I will discuss how social networking sites have both a beneficial and unbeneficial influence on our way of life and everyday interactions within society. Social networking sites have increased our overall social interactions as well as provided society with additional ways to build social connections. However, for these interactions and connections to be advantageous, individuals within society must be aware of and accept the decrease in privacy that arises with the increased social interaction, only then will it be a benefit. Although, if individuals within society forget or do not accept the decrease in privacy and therefore perform acts on social networking sites they may not be fond of society seeing, this can alter their everyday interactions by making the individuals less social. It is difficult to pinpoint how society and everyday life has changed until you view how different everyday interactions are from ten to closer to five years ago. Recent years have shown that more than anything else, social media has drastically impacted most of societies daily lives due to tools such as Facebook and Twitter. Social networking communication sites have significantly altered our way of life as well as the way we network via one another and the world around us. Here are a few areas that social networking has reshaped in societies everyday interactions.

Social media has positively impacted young adults because it creates friendships. Danah Boyd, an author, principal researcher at Microsoft and the founder of Data & Society references the story of an interview with a sixteen year-old girl, Tara in her publication “It’s Complicated: the social lives of networked teens.” “Tara likes Facebook because it allows her to connect with her friends. Like many of her peers, Tara spends hours each work viewing her friends’ photos and updates, writing comments, and reading comments left by others” (Boyd). Communication is a crucial element in teenager’s social lives and the social networks can help maintain that. Essentially, Boyd focuses on the fact that one of the most burdening reasons teens use social media is to connect with friends. Social media can be interpreted in several different ways, but this reasoning is often overlooked. Staying connected with

Almost everybody is aware of some impact social networking sites have had on their life. Whether one comes from the generation before the advances in technology, the generation during the technological advances, or the generation born into the world full of technology, it is all the same; technology has impacted their life. The impact, however, may either be positive or negative. With the way today’s social networking sites (SNS) are working, there seems to be more negatives around than the positives. Some of the negatives within SNS include cyber bullying, lack of privacy, and the adverse effects of screen time.

In modern times, technological advancement has greatly improved the social benefits within society. A vastly growing percentage of young people across America are growing more proficient in using the internet for communication across their country to international regions. In the year 2009, a national survey was conducted for individuals between the ages of eight to eighteen years, where the average time adolescents spent on any form of social media was more than 7.5 hours of a day. Once the average time of multitasking was calculated, such as listening to music and web surfing, the overall average time amounted to 10 hours and 45 minutes. (Brown & Bobkowski 2011)

The growing prominence of online social networking in this age of technology has created inevitable problems. There are many clear issues present in society due to online social networking. Specifically, problems have arose in regards to the relationship between people in society and loneliness. The idea of loneliness resulting from online social networks might sound like a paradox and preposterous considering their purpose is to ultimately unite and bring people together. Essentially, through the abundant amount of users and its appealing features, social

Social networking has modernized today’s culture and lifestyle among teenagers. It has sparked the rise of mass communication globally. A study was shown in India that 63 cent of people spend time on Facebook and around 48% spend around 2-3 hours on social sites. Social media sites such as Snapchat, instagram, and facebook main objective is to allow people to become socially active with friends and family. Countries around the world have been experienced the effect of modernization within their society, due to social networking. Youth are able to create long-lasting friendships while communicating on social sites. Also, social networking allows students to engage in academics and collaborate with classmates on projects. It is considered the “source for new knowledge”, teenagers are able to receive the newest information and news with the touch of a button. (5) The Unites States is look as a “consumer”country and social media has impacted the lifestyle who live in it. It is known that 78% of the US population owes some sort of social media account . This causes

As technology grows so does the use of social network sites. Smart phones make it easy for people to take social media everywhere they go. At the end of 2015 the number were big for popular network sites such Facebook, Tumbler, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat. The amount of users at the end of 2015 for Facebook was 1,550,000,000, Tumbler 420,000,000, Instagram 400,000,000, Twitter 320,000,000 and snapchat 100,000,000. These are the amount of users not distinguishing between ages of the users.

Nowadays everyone has accounts on multiple social networking sites and they spend a lot of time on updating the developments in their daily life and uploading various media like pictures and videos. People really enjoy doing this kind of activity, to be able to communicate with their friends, family members, and also meet new people. For certain people who use social networking as a marketing forum, this is an effective method. However social networking comes with its own share of negative effects on people. It is indeed true that the way social networking revolutionized the communication channels and brought thr world closer but one should also be wary of its ill effects. A general assumption is that communication technologies help to increase and strengthen social ties. (Cheryl L. Coyle, 2008).