The World of Social Networking

8/2/2019 The World of Social Networking

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RESEARCH STUDY ABOUT

THE WORLD OF SOCIAL NETWORKING

Venus Maruja P. SantiagoEsther Rose I. Hernandez

Sheila Marie C. Bola

4th Year, Section Committed

Issued to:

Ms. Catherine F. Jimenez

(Teacher, English IV)

on this 5th

day of March, 2012


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I. Early to Present Methods of Communication: An Introduction

II. The Social Networkinga. Definitionb. History

III. How it works?a. Typical features

b. Additional features

IV. Social Networking and the other fields

a. Science

b. Education

c. Employmentd. Business

e. Broadcast Media

V. The Global Effect of SNS

VI. The Impact and Issues

a. Privacyb. Online Bullyingc. Psychological ability

VII. Factors to be Consider Affecting by Social Networking

a. Privacy

b. Time Management

c. Reputationd. Friendships

VIII. Conclusion

Bibliography


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I. Early to Present Methods of Communication: An Introduction

On early times, people always use handwritten letters or cards (also known as Snail Mail)

to keeping in touch to their loved ones and friends. It is warm and personal, but it takes

time to write and days to reach the recipient. But before that, people usually communicate

by face-to-face conversations. On this method, it includes all the subtle nuances of facial

expression, tone of voice and gestures. But both parties must be available to talk.

As time passes by, aside from face-to-face conversations and handwritten letters or cards,

people may now communicate using phone call. On the early 90s, text messaging and

instant messaging or chat immerged. And now, electronic mail system or E-mail, that can

be composed and delivered quickly, but emotion is often lacking or easy to misinterpret,

like text messaging, added to the methods of communication.

Never have there been so many options for keeping in touch, and these early methods of

communications are still useful until now. But how about social networking?

II. The Social Networking

Definition

As Wikipedia describes Social Networking, it is an online service, platform, or site that

focuses on building and reflecting of social networks or social relations among people,


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who, for example, share interests and/or activities. A social network service consists of a

representation of each user (often a profile), his/her social links, and a variety of

additional services. Most social network services are web-based and provide means for

users to interact over the Internet, such as e-mail and instant messaging. Online

community services are sometimes considered as a social network service, though in a

broader sense, social network service usually means an individual-centered service

whereas online community services are group-centered. Social networking sites allow

users to share ideas, activities, events, and interests within their individual networks.

Social network are web-based services and allow individuals to construct a public or

semi-private profile within a bounded system. Also, it articulate a list of other users with

whom they share a connection and view and traverse their list of connections and those

made by others within the system. It emphasizes relationship initiation, often between

strangers.

History

Many prototypical features of social networking sites were also present in online services

such as America Online, Prodigy, CompuServe, The WELL. Early social networking on

the World Wide Web began in the form of generalized online communities such as

Theglobe.com (1995), Geocities (1994) and Tripod.com (1995). Many of these early

communities focused on bringing people together to interact with each other through chat

rooms, and encouraged users to share personal information and ideas via personal

webpages by providing easy-to-use publishing tools and free or inexpensive webspace.


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The first recognizable social network site was launched in 1997. The website is

SixDegrees.com. The features on this website were allowed users to create profiles, and

list their friends. In 1998, theyve added surfing the friends list. Another social network

site was formed, the Classmates.com. Classmates.com allowed people to affiliate with

their high school or college surf the network for others who were also affiliated. But

unlike SixDegrees.com, Classmates.com users could not create profiles or surf the

Friends List.

By the year 2000, SixDegrees.com was closed and Makeoutclub began the service, then

Hub Culture and Friendster in 2002, and soon became part of the Internet mainstream.

Friendster was followed by MySpace and LinkedIn a year later, and, finally, Bebo.

Attesting to the rapid increase in social networking sites' popularity, by 2005, it was

reported that MySpace was getting more page views than Google. Facebook, launched in

2004, became the largest social networking site in the worldin early 2009, and remains

largest of all social networks.

III. How it works?

Typical features

Social networking sites share a variety of technical features. The most basic of these are

visible profiles with a list of "friends" who are also users of the site. A profile is

generated from answers to questions, such as age, location, interests, etc. Some sites

allow users to upload pictures, add multimedia content or modify the look and feel of the

profile. Others, e.g., Facebook, allow users to enhance their profile by adding modules or


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"Applications." Many sites allow users to post blog entries, search for others with similar

interests and compile and share lists of contacts. User profiles often have a section

dedicated to comments from friends and other users. To protect user privacy, social

networks typically have controls that allow users to choose who can view their profile,

contact them, add them to their list of contacts, and so on.

Additional features

Some social networks have additional features, such as the ability to create groups that

share common interests or affiliations, upload or stream live videos, and hold discussions

in forums. Geosocial networking co-opts Internet mapping services to organize user

participation around geographic features and their attributes.

Lately, mobile social networking has become popular. In most mobile communities,

mobile phone users can now create their own profiles, make friends, participate in chat

rooms, create chat rooms, hold private conversations, share photos and videos, and share

blogs by using their mobile phone. Some companies provide wireless services that allow

their customers to build their own mobile community and brand it; one of the most

popular wireless services for social networking is Facebook Mobile.

IV. Social Networking and the other fields

Science

Social networking is now being used by some scientific groups / organizations to expand

their knowledge and share their ideas to other people without new means of


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communicating on their theories that might become isolated and irrelevant. Science

communities found out on their study that by using social networking, exchanging

information with one another may increase their learning on their field.

Education

Nowadays, social networking is used as one of the medium of teaching or educational

tool. Teachers started to familiarize themselves to some social networking sites to use it

as their advantage to their students, since many students are already using a wide-range

of social networking sites. Professors are doing everything to reach and teach their

students, from creating chat-room forums and groups to extend classroom discussion to

posting assignments, tests and quizzes, to assisting with homework outside of the

classroom setting. It is also helpful for them to have teacher-parent communication. It

make possible and more convenient for parents to ask questions and voice concerns

without having to meet face-to-face. The advent of social networking platforms may also

be impacting the way(s) in which learners engage with technology in general. The use of

online social networks by libraries is also an increasingly prevalent and growing tool that

is being used to communicate with more potential library users, as well as extending the

services provided by individual libraries. Social networks are also emerging as

online yearbooks, both public and private. Some sites allows anyone from the general

public to register and connect. A new trend emerging is private label yearbooks

accessible only by students, parents, and teachers of a particular school, similar

to Facebook's beginning within Harvard.


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Employment

A final rise in social network use is being driven by college students using the services to

network with professionals for internship and job opportunities. Many schools have

implemented online alumni directories which serve as makeshift social networks that

current and former students can turn to for career advice.

Currently, some headhunters and companies use social networking to post job

advertisement and seek applicants. They encourage these people to apply, using a social

networking site.

Business

Few social networks currently charge money for membership. In part, this may be

because social networking is a relatively new service, and the value of using them has not

been firmly established in customers' mind. Companies such

as MySpace and Facebook sell online advertising on their site. Their business model is

based upon large membership count, and charging for membership would be

counterproductive. Some believe that the deeper information that the sites have on each

user will allow much better targeted advertising than any other site can currently provide.

They use social networking to promote their business and encourage users to join with

them by simply clicking the link or liking it.


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Social networks connect people at low cost; this can be beneficial

for entrepreneurs and small businesses looking to expand their contact bases. These

networks often act as a customer relationship management tool for companies selling

products and services. Companies can also use social networks for advertising in the form

of banners and text ads. Since businesses operate globally, social networks can make it

easier to keep in touch with contacts around the world.

Broadcast Media

Social networking is now part of what we called media portal. TV stations use it to

broadcast latest news and upcoming events. It is also use by the users/members of a

social networking site to join on some discussions, expressing their opinions on the topic.

People can easily access social networking sites, and now, they are updated on current

news without turning on the TV or listening to the radio. Here in the Philippines, TV

stations like GMA 7, TV 5 and ABS-CBN 2 always update their accounts on Facebook in

bringing the news to the people, anytime and anywhere. Also, on July 2011, GMA 7

creates the new campaign Think Before You Click- a campaign by GMA News to

promote responsible use of social media.

V. The Global Effect of Social Networking

While MySpace attracted the majority of media attention in the U.S. and abroad, Social

Networking Sites were growing in popularity worldwide. Friendster gained traction in the


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Pacific Islands, Orkut became the premier Social Networking Site in Brazil before

growing rapidly in India, Mixi attained widespread adoption in Japan, LunarStorm took

off in Sweden, Dutch users embraced Hyves, Grono captured Poland, Hi5 was adopted in

smaller countries in Latin America, South America, and Europe, and Bebo became very

popular in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia. Additionally, previously

popular communication and community services began implementing Social Networking

Site features. The Chinese QQ instant messaging service instantly became the largest

SNS worldwide when it added profiles and made friends visible, while the forum tool

Cyworld cornered the Korean market by introducing homepages and buddies.

Blogging services with complete SNS features also became popular. In the U.S., blogging

tools with SNS features, such as Xanga, LiveJournal, and Vox, attracted broad audiences.

Skyrock reigns in France, and Windows Live Spaces dominates numerous markets

worldwide, including in Mexico, Italy, and Spain. Although Social Networking Sites like

QQ, Orkut, and Live Spaces are just as large as, if not larger than, MySpace, they receive

little coverage in U.S. and English-speaking media, making it difficult to track their

trajectories.

Alongside these open services, others launched to support niche demographics before

expanding to a broader audience. Facebook was designed to support distinct college

networks only. Facebook began in early 2004 as a Harvard-only Social Networking Site.

To join, a user had to have a harvard.edu email address. As Facebook began supporting

other schools, those users were also required to have university email addresses


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associated with those institutions, a requirement that kept the site relatively closed and

contributed to users' perceptions of the site as an intimate, private community.

Beginning in September 2005, Facebook expanded to include high school students,

professionals inside corporate networks, and, eventually, everyone. The change to open

signup did not mean that new users could easily access users in closed networks

gaining access to corporate networks still required the appropriate .com address, while

gaining access to high school networks required administrator approval. (As of this

writing, only membership in regional networks requires no permission.) Facebook users

are unable to make their full profiles public to all users. Another feature that

differentiates Facebook is the ability for outside developers to build "Applications" which

allow users to personalize their profiles and perform other tasks, such as compare movie

preferences and chart travel histories.

VI. The Impact and Issues

Social networking service made people more convenient when it comes to

communicating to their loved ones very fast. They can also share their interests and

activities across other fields, such as the fields being discussed a while ago. It brought

information quickly and enhances the knowledge of others once you share. Some of users

also tried to create their own social networking service by purchasing a hosting service.


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Social networking sites, such as Facebook, started on a small community, but now, it

makes a worldwide trend. Comscore, a leader in measuring the digital world, says that

currently, there are no reliable data regarding how many people use Social Networking

service, although marketing research indicates that social networking sites are growing in

popularity worldwide. This growth has prompted many corporations to invest time and

money in creating, purchasing, promoting, and advertising.. At the same time, other

companies are blocking their employees from accessing the sites.

The rise indicates a shift in the organization of online communities. While websites

dedicated to communities of interest still exist and prosper, social networking service is

primarily organized around people, not interests. Early public online communities such as

Usenet on the early years and public discussion forums were structured by topics or

according to topical hierarchies, but social network sites are structured as personal

networks, with the individual at the center of their own community. This more accurately

mirrors unmediated social structures, where the world is composed of networks, not

groups. The introduction of its features has introduced a new organizational framework

for online communities, and with it, a vibrant new research context. However, some

groups started to investigate how the impact of social networking service into the issues

of privacy, online bullying, and psychological effect.

Privacy

Privacy concerns with social networking services have become a controversial and much

publicised topic since the creation and increasing popularity of social networking sites


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such as Bebo, Myspace and the currently most used social networking site, Facebook.

Issues relating to stalking, identity theft, sexual predators and employment consistently

arise, as well as the ethics regarding data storage and the management and sharing of

such data. A security issue occurs when a hacker gains unauthorized access to a site's

protected coding or written language. Privacy issues don't necessarily have to involve

security breaches. The potential harm to an individual user really boils down to how

much a user engages in a social networking site, as well as the amount of the information

they're willing to share. A user with more viewers or apart of groups is a lot more likely

to be harmed by a breach than someone who barely uses the site.

In addition, there is a perceived privacy threat in relation to placing too much personal

information in the hands of large corporations or governmental bodies, allowing a profile

to be produced on an individual's behavior on which decisions, detrimental to an

individual, may be taken.

Privacy on social networking sites can be undermined by many factors. For example,

users may disclose personal information, sites may not take adequate steps to protect user

privacy, and third parties frequently use information posted on social networks for a

variety of purposes. For the next generation, social networking sites have become the

preferred forum for social interactions, from posturing and role playing to simply

sounding off. However, because such forums are relatively easy to access, posted content

can be reviewed by anyone with an interest in the users' personal information.


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Online Bullying

Online bullying, also called cyber-bullying, is a relatively common occurrence and it can

often result in emotional trauma for the victim. There are not many limitations as to what

individuals can post when online. Individuals are given the power to post offensive

remarks or pictures that could potentially cause a great amount of emotional pain for

another individual. In using social networking site, we must aware on what are we going

to post or share. Some studies state that online bullying victims have lower self-esteem,

increased suicidal ideation, and a variety of emotional responses, retaliating, being

scared, frustrated, angry, and depressed. One of the most damaging effects is that a

victim begins to avoid friends and activities, often the very intention of the cyber-bully.

However, bad experiences came from the individuals who bullied online knew how to

managed the experience, such as blocking the person from contacting them, indicating

that the experience had led them to consider ways to avoid such occurrences in future.

Psychological Effect

As social networking sites have raised in popularity over the past years, people have been

spending an excessive amount of time on the Internet in general and social networking

sites in specific. This has led researchers to debate the establishment of Internet addiction

as an actual clinical disorder. Social networking can also affect the extent to which a

person feels lonely.

Truly, there is no doubt that people are often more eager about embracing new

technologies and become highly skilled very quickly. They are also more vulnerable and


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less inhibited in their communication and therefore may become exposed to risks. Some

studies indicate that people using online social networking are more likely to be those

that rate themselves as having moderate levels of shyness and sociability, suggesting

individuals who are likely to be competent socially, have already well-developed

friendship networks prior to joining online networks, and develop new friends easily.

Further investigation of the relationship between levels of sociability and time spent on

social networking sites showed that as sociability increased, time spent using social

networking sites increased.

This provides further support to the notion that patterns of face-to-face communication

are replicated in the online environment. This is consistent with what sociologists

describe as a social network theory, a theory based on the view that it is the relationships

between people that will have an impact on patterns of social networking regardless of

the mode of communication.

VII. Factors to be Consider Affecting by Social Networking

As with virtually any use of the Internet, social networking has its dangers. With that in

mind, we can consider the following factors:

Privacy

If we are not careful, our profile information, photos, status updates, and comments could

reveal too much. They might reveal such things as where we live, when we are at home,


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where we work, or where we go to school. Our address along with a brief post such as,

We leave for vacation tomorrow! is enough to tell a thiefwhere and when to strike.

Other detailsfor instance, our e-mail address, our date of birth, or our phone number

could leave us open to harassment, bullying, or identity theft. Yet, many people readily

divulge such information on their social networking page. People tend to forget that once

they post something online, it is in the public domain.

Even if they specify that their status updates are to be shared with Friends Only, they

have no control over what those friends might do with the information. Really, anything

posted on a social network should be viewed as public or as materialthat can easily bemadepublic.

What can we do here is to bethoroughly familiar with the privacy settings on our socialnetwork, and use them. Restrict access to our status updates and photos to people we

know and trust. Even then, realize that what we post can be made more public than we

intend. Regularly review our page, and ask ourselves whether anything we have revealed

could be used by unscrupulous individuals to locate us or to steal our identity. Even

among our friends, do not post information that could violate our privacy or the privacy


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of another person. If we have sensitive information to relate, use another form of

communication, such as talking on the phone.

Time Management

Social networking can consume our time and distract us from more vital activities. The

more contacts we have, the more time we will spend social networking and the more

addictive it can be. Some individuals say, Its hard to get off a social networking site,

even when you do. Social networking is like a vortex that sucks us in, and we have no

idea youve been caught.

Time is a commodity that we cannot afford to waste. So why not set a budget for it, just

as we would for our money? First, write down an amount of time that feels would be

reasonable to spend networking. Then track ourselves for a month, and see how well you

kept your resolve. Make adjustments where needed. Never let social networkingor any

online activity, for that matterinterferes with the friendships you should be cultivating

within your own household.

Reputation

What you post on a social network carves out a reputation for you that may be difficult to

erase. Many seem oblivious to the potential danger. Damaging your reputation on a social

network can have long-range consequences.


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You may try this: Look at your social network page and try to see it the way others would

see it. Ask yourself these questions: Is this how I really want to be viewed? If someone

looked at my posted photos and had to describe my character as they perceived it, what

terms would likely come to that persons mind? Flirty? Sexy? If so, is that the way I

want to be seen when I apply for a job, for example, and my prospective employer looks

at my page? Do these pictures really represent the values I stand for? If you are a young

person, ask yourself: What if my parents, a teacher, or an adult whom I look up to

viewed my page? Would I be embarrassed at what they could see and read?

Friendship

Your friendships influence how you think and act. So it only makes sense to be selective

about whom you befriend on a social network. Some accept dozens or even hundreds of

friend requests from people they hardly knowor do not know at all. Others discover

that not all on their list of friends are good associates.

Set up a friending policy. For example, some have put limits on themselves with regard

to friendships. You may allow that you truly know them, never add strangers. If you

receive a friend request from someone you dont know, you can ignore it. You can also

set a very strict privacy setting. Always remember that not all of the individuals on a

social networking were OK for you to associate with them. The best guideline is to only a

friend people you know and have a connection with offline.


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VIII. Conclusion

Social networking service truly invaded the new generation. We found out that it made

our method of communication immerged by using the technology. We knew how it

works by understanding the history behind it and the current features found on the

existing social networking sites. Also, social networking became useful to other fields; it

was used as an advantage. Although social networking gives us positive results, we still

need to consider the potential dangers of it. Always bear in mind that anything found on

our profiles reflects to us. We must think ways on how to use social networking properly.

Like what the campaign of a TV station, Think Before You Click. We need to consider

the factors given on this research study, for us to be safe and secure.


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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Coyne, Elliot, Effects of Social Networking,

https://sites.google.com/site/elliottcoyne8292/research-paper---effects-of-social-networking, dated 2010.

Boyd, d. m., & Ellison, N. B. Social network sites: Definition, history, and

scholarship.Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), article 11.

http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html , released year 2007

Wikipedia, Social Networking Service,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_networking_service , as of March 2, 2012

Wikipedia, Social Networking in the Philippines,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_networking_in_the_Philippines , as of March, 2, 2012

Awake, What Should You Know About Social Networking?, Watchtower Bible andTract Society of Pennsylvania. Volume 93, Number 2, pp. 4-9. dated February, 2012.

Webultima, Social Networking,http://webultima.com/blog/?p=54 , as of November, 2009.
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The World of Social Networking