Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Social Networking

Social netwoking has pretty much spilled over onto the business/ corporate world. It was only a matter of time for businesses to get involve in social networking since there is so many people using it. Social networking sites like facebook allows anyone to stay connected; from being connected to your neighbors to staying connected with family members from across the sea.

But, with constant status updates and comments, one would think that only teens will have the spare time to do this. This is not the case, due to the various social networking sites available, there bound to be some SN sites that are more appealing to the older crowd as well. According to The New York Times article, the popular twitter site is mostly driven by older people (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/26/technology/internet/26twitter.html). This way the needs of various groups of people will be met. Plus adults can 'catch up' to their kids ;].

Corporate giants like "AT&T began 'tweeting' updates about the massive service outage in California" (http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10216712-94.html). Customers will be aware of what's going on with their services and it can even strengthen their relationship with the company. Another interesting article in the New York Times is, "Tweeting From the Operating Room" which talks about a patients being in the operating room and the family members can see up-to-date status on twitter of what's going on (http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/09/tweeting-from-the-operating-room/). This technology can definitely evolve to something very useful in the future. It's all about knowing information here and now, which is made available through SN sites.

However, there are also any problems with SN sites. Such as devaluing the meaning of friends, because it's so easy to add someone we just met for a few minutes. It also lessens the face-to-face contact with people, thus less socializing in the real world. Martin Baily states, "Powerful new technologies provide great benefits, but they also change the way we live, and not always in ways that everyone likes. An example is the spread of air conditioning, which makes us more comfortable, but those who grew up before its invention speak fondly of a time when everyone sat on the front porch and talked to their neighbors rather than going indoors to stay cool and watch TV" (http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/15/is-myspace-good-for-society-a-freakonomics-quorum/)

There are unquestionably positives and negatives to everything. But will one ever outweigh the other?

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