Social Networking: Influence on Society and Redefining Social Relationships.

In the last ten to fifteen years accompanying the dawn of social media, means of communication among friends and strangers have been easier than ever. Since its creation in 2004, Facebook has grown into the largest social media site on the Internet with 30 million users and counting. The ability to catch up with former high school friends who are now across the country or see how an aunt in Pittsburgh has been doing since the birth of her son are now as simple as the click of a mouse. However, the amount of “friends” acquired on social media may not be an accurate reflection of how many close relationships one truly shares. In an article from Bigthink.com titled “Do You Have Too Many Facebook Friends?”, Steven Mazie gathers research from Pew Research Center about statistics surrounding Facebook

Social networking is the mainstream way to communicate with anyone. Teenagers are obsessed with social networking, no one calls each other unless it’s extreme circumstances or their mother. Sharing pictures, sharing life stories, and sharing opinions online has been the way of life and the norm for kids growing up with computers and smart phones. The parents to this generation have not grown up in the same environment and have different standards for online activity. In the Article “ 10 Reasons Why I Avoid Social Networking Services” written by Alan Norton, he lists why he does not use social networking services. His personal beliefs are backed up with statistics and hold true to many people in his generation but not in the younger ones.

A prevalent issue regarding social media and interactions exists between researchers and social network users. Social media is currently changing how relationships between people are created. Relationships can exist through people across the world through social media and can produce more emotional bonds with friends that you can see everyday. On the other hand, social media also could present conflicts due to the fact that some of these relationships can become unhealthy and that people could change to be more dependent on internet friends, becoming introverted.

The article “I’m So Totally, Digitally, Close To You (Brave New World of Digital Intimacy)” (2002) is written by Clive Thompson, who is also a blogger and columnist. The author aims to explain the users’ attraction of Facebook, Twitter and other forms of “incessant online contact” through his text. Since social networking has become a nearly ubiquitous aspect of human contemporary life, Thomson has effectively illustrated the invasion of the social media into human daily lives, how people are commanded by it. He later goes on to explore the benefits of social networking sites and a few challenges of the usage assumptions.

Author, Senior editor of The New Atlantis, and fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, Christine Rosen, in her article “Virtual Friendships and the New Narcissism,” analyzes if technology can provide what it promises- “a surer sense of who we are and where we belong.” Rosen’s purpose of her article is to argue that social networking sites are doing more harm than good. Rosen uses multiple studies and quotes to present her argument.

Ellison et al believed that Facebook is a ‘rich site’ for research into the quality of relationships due its ‘heavy usage patterns’ and the mechanics of how it is more about offline to online relationships due the nature of the creation of the site, for university students to communicate. Facebook in incredibly different from other CMC as many users actually know most their ‘friends’ in real terms on the site.

Innovations such as FaceBook and MySpace combine images, text, and messaging to create new possibilities for social interaction. Websites such as YouTube combine broadcast media with the self-directed properties of the internet. SMS texting has revolutionised the social lives of many people. All these media allow people to sustain relationships across time and space in ways that have never before been possible. Some are concerned however, that over-reliance on such forms of communication reduces the importance of face-to-face social experience. Others argue that such media present new ways of defining our identities and establishing new kinds of social interaction (Castells, 2000).

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

In “Me and My 400 Friends: The Anatomy of College Students’ Facebook Networks, Their Communication Patterns, and Well-Being,” Manago, Taylor, and Greenfield seek to understand if there is a trade-off between large networks of social connections on social networking sites (such as Facebook), and the development of intimacy and support among today’s generation of young adults. Published January 30, 2012 and consisting of 12 pages of research, the study was conducted by online survey distributed to students at a large urban university. Participants answered questions about their relationships by sampling their Facebook contacts while viewing their online profiles. The findings of this study indicate the transformation of the nature of intimacy in the environment of a social network site, while also emphasizing the psychological importance of audience in the Facebook environment. It is suggested that social networking helps young adults satisfy psychosocial needs for permanent social relationships in a geographically mobile world.

Virtual spaces like blogging websites such as LiveJournal and Tumblr, networking places like Twitter and Facebook have become invaluable to humanity. They open up new ways to communicate and can bring the world into your bedroom, which can be a life changing experience as it was for me when I was a teenager. While there will always be criticism and cynical attitudes towards relationships built online it’s often lost in the noise that while society is shaped by advances in technology humanity shapes how it’s used for good or for

Many people in our society can relate. We wake up, check our phones. We go to school, check our phones. We go home, check our phones. And right before we go to bed, we check our phones. And for what? What are we constantly checking? Imagine logging out of social networking sites for one day. How would you feel? You would probably feel disconnected and want to log back on as soon as possible. This generation uses these websites to connect, to stay in the loop, and to become involved. However, people will take advantage of the use of these websites, and in return, the websites take over the majority of their life. The act of constantly wanting to be

Homnack (2015) suggests that “online dating has changed the ways in which interpersonal relationships are developed and maintained” (p. 2); Online daters are granted access to use various platforms through which they can easily meet other singles alike to them. Holloway and Valentine (2003) highlight that “for marginalized people, the internet allows them to meet other people alike to themselves who may not be immediately available in their local social circles” (Pascoe, 2011, p. 9). According to Pascoe (2009a) “young adults especially are at the forefront of developing, using, reworking, and incorporating new media into their dating practices in ways that might be unknown, unfamiliar and sometimes scary to adults” (p. 117). Today, the main

Social media improves the way people communicate with others. It allows them to meet new people. At the click of a button, millions of strangers all over the world who would have never met otherwise are able to connect with each other. Many people believe that internet friends are not as valuable as real life friendships. However with websites like “skype” and instant messaging sites, long distance friendships can be as intimate as real life friendships because social media allows friends to see each other face to face and spend quality time together whenever they want to. Because of this, internet friendships should no longer be considered taboo and should be seen as normal human relationships, “It’s entirely possible to have hundreds of

Facebook, a social networking website, has changed the way people communicate with each other. A social networking website is an online platform that allows users to create a public profile and interact with other users on the website. Facebook has even changed our most personal and private conversations and how they are conducted around the world. Since the internet’s birth in 1983, this trend of online communication has been growing. Created in 2004, now registered with more than one billion participants, Facebook’s user numbers surpass even the top four social networking websites combined. According to Wikipedia statistics, Instagram has 300 million registered users, LinkedIn has 200 million users, Classmates.com has 50 million users, and Flickr has 32 million registered users. To be further convinced of the claim that Facebook indeed changes the way we communicate, you would only need to create your own Facebook account and start participating in their social networking experience. Technology and internet usage is fused into every aspect of our society including the style of communication. The launch of Facebook in 2006 also enabled other devices such as touch phones, interactive tablets, and even advanced cars with their own networking capabilities starting in 2007. Facebook is a multibillion-dollar company and is highly recognized for connecting more people than other networks. Facebook’s long-term success can be attributed to providing entertainment, world news, and

Today’s youth generation, has a strong attachment to the online world. Many adolescents spend most of their time online versus offline. Therefore, one can consider these adolescents as a social network addict, a person who spends a fair amount of time on one or many social platforms. Throughout the three articles, “Social Networking Addiction: An Overview of Preliminary Findings” by Mark Griffiths, “Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship” by Nicole B. Ellison and “Taking Risky Opportunities in Youthful Content Creation: Teenagers’ use of Social Networking Sites for Intimacy, Privacy, and Self-expression” by Sonia Livingstone, show how this addiction has changed people’s communication among people. While there are