Advantagesand Disadvantages of Social Networking
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Socialnetworking is an online amenity, podium or establishment aimed atconstructing and smoothing the structuring of social linkages andsocial dealings in the midst of individuals. Thanks to theever-changing technology, social networking is getting easier by theday. Creation of smartphones and other portable gadgets incooperation with internet access promotes the use of these sites byindividuals. Social networking comes with its pros and cons.
Advantagesand Disadvantages of Social Networking
Socialnetworking stays advantageous on global connectivity. It brings intoexistence an easier and faster means of connection. These links helpwith the discovery of love, finding aid, receiving and delivery ofgoods and amenity transfers, getting a backing from like-mindedfolks, creating or getting a career or own guidance, sharingpolitical opinions and acquisition of news in real time. It helpspeople stay in touch with their loved ones despite their position onthe globe making the world a “global village.”
Forexample, thanks to platforms like Skype, people can chat via video toeach other from any place in the world. From this socialization,people can make new alliances and maintain old friendships, findsuitors and rally them for marriage or companionship as well as,communicate with people away from personal confrontations. Thanks tounique features, geotagging is now a trend that in the use of socialnetworks. Through adding geographical information to media, thebuilding of a place-based folksonomy becomes easy, Albrechtslund(2008). People can create new alliances with individuals livingnearby and build strong relations. For example, adding your locationon a photo you post on Instagram, makes you easily identifiable bylocation to others through the search engine
Inthe case of an emergency, it is easy using social networks to locateassistance like ambulance services in the event of a medical urgency.Social networking is a trading platform away from the solid groundit is a virtual market. People can sell as well as buy goods fromfriends and individuals online with the advantage of comparison ofprices to get a better bargain. In the course of making your stand ona particular issue, you can get people who share your sentiments tosupport you. From this, one can achieve actualization of good ideas.
ForMedia houses, social networking has transformed the rapidity of thenews progression. Twitter, for example, is a conventional cradle ofbreaking news from terrorist attacks to accidents within. Thesmartphones era has facilitated this because more people have accessto social media in the palm of their hands. Thereby, various mediahouses sell themselves to the public by sharing news on theseplatforms. In the process, people acquire news in real time.
Socialnetworking is advantageous in real-time data distribution. Severalfree networking platforms have a quick messaging feature thatpermits interchange of data in real-time using dialogue. Educators,for example, can utilize this feature to ease schoolroomconsultations as it allows the students exploit the massive stock ofmaterial obtainable on the internet. For distracted learners, it Is abetter way to engage them in the discussion rather than them going tothe library for research.
Socialnetworking can be advantageous to organizations through targetedpublicity. Non-profit and profit organizations alike need toadvertise to millions of people in an instant. According to Waterset al. (2009), Platforms like Facebook, for example, alloworganizations to create their profiles and become active members. Forbusiness, therefore, it proves economical than conventionaladvertising and promotion events. Organizations have thereforestarted including these schemes into their clear association`s userinterface design. Profit establishments use these platforms tointroduce stuff and make stronger their current products. Non- profitorganizations use the platforms to advertise for things likefundraisers. However, having profiles in these platforms alone is notenough to proliferate awareness or generate flooding of involvementin both profit and non-profit organizations respectively.Incorporation of cautious tactics and study for non-profits, forexample, helps in the efforts to advance social networking dealingswith their sponsors.
Employerscan easily get employees off social platforms like LinkedIn, whichgive detail on an individual’s professionalism. Employees can alsoseek employment through the same site, therefore, facilitating thejob search.
Socialnetworking also shares a plethora of cons. Every social site givesthe user an opportunity to set their privacy options. They, however,can be changed from their default settings to limit what other peoplecan access about you. Therefore, you end up losing some privacycompared to opting out of social sites. For example, one may wish tonetwork on Facebook with their family alone, but end up having otherparts made public.
Sometimes,especially when people grow up, they end up regretting things theyshared with people online that at the time seemed funny tothemselves. Comments they made or pictures they posted can still beavailable even after deleting them off the internet because of itsnature to store information indefinitely thus the term ‘theinternet never forgets’.
Cyberbullying, which is where an individual shares mean or made up thingsabout a person is one of the downsides of social networking. Althoughthese can be remedied by reporting to the support teams of the sites,it is never really that curable. Cases have been very severe in thepast with false accusations made against a person and worse, gettingridiculed by strangers who know vaguely of you. Suicidal cases areever increasing due to the psychological effect such comments andposts have on a person.
Socialnetworking calls for proceeding with caution in the interactionsbecause people often create fake accounts. They lie about themselvessounding so genuine and real until you get to know them. These peoplehave different ulterior motives like murder, rape, extortion of moneyor even revenge over a past squabble. So long as you haven’t metthe person in real life, you do not certify knowing them by what youshare online. Cases are there of people murdered on blind dates,robberies, and even sexual abuse.
Socialnetworking is very addictive thus takes up much of people’s timewhich ends up affecting things like their studies and work. Forexample, a student spending a lot of time on social media that theycould be exercising on their education. They end up having incompleteassignments, late submissions, and poor grades after it all becausethey hardly read. Social media reduces face to face interactions withpreferences to ‘chatting’. It makes people more aggressive andless social. It becomes a problem when a person can’t expressthemselves in front of another individual or address a crowd even intheir line of work for lack of the skill.
Careerdevelopment is a self-initiated practice through sustenance andassets delivered as a result of employers as well as the association.It purposes on developing oneself and their expertise with ambitionsof adding worth on behalf of the organization as well asself-betterment. Expanding one’s knowledge commences withevaluating which skills are vital for the preferred businessdevelopment. A source of the development of skills comes frominteractions with others. When one chooses to take part in a socialnet communal, one can pick and select persons with related interestsand construct the network surrounding these communities. In thesecommunities, individuals share guidelines and thoughts. Platformslike Pinterest help folks acquire and share material entailingparticular interests. Through the exchange of ideas and techniquesfrom more skilled individuals, one can educate themselves on what toapply in the organization for career development.
Conclusion
Socialnetworking has a vast scope of advantages, but it also incorporates afair share of disadvantages we cannot fail to recognize. According toAlbrechtslund (2008), social networking is characterized by fourproperties: its persistence, searchability, replicability andinvisible audiences. Due to its persistence, communication is storedindefinitely. At the palm of one’s hands is access to informationfrom search engines through keying in a few phrases. Information insocial sites is mostly to a particular crowd but, it is potentiallyavailable to the general public with Internet access. Therefore,anyone can track the history of someone’s social life andscrutinize comments they made, things they wrote on blogs and evenpictures they post. Networking on these platforms, therefore, shouldbe a deliberate, cautious step.
Socialnetworks can inconvenience an individual if one is not careful. Abetter way to curb cons of social networking is always to rememberthat it is like a spectacle roll of life’s finest moments -attention-seizing, wisely modified and blown up. Real life is notlike that and the faster we acknowledge that better the understandingof what’s real and what matters.
References
1.Waters,R. D., Burnett, E., Lamm, A., & Lucas, J. (2009). Engagingstakeholders through social networking: How nonprofit organizationsare using Facebook. Public relations review, 35(2), 102-106
2.Albrechtslund, A. (2008). Online social networking as participatorysurveillance. First Monday, 13(3)