From time to time on this blog I will be making posts in relation to topics we have discussed in our class this semester. This week our professor started a discussion topic relating to the benefits of communicating through the Internet. Social media outlets have become the biggest form of communication and can have a major impact on the way we get our news. Seeing as I started my particular blog to focus on technology in law enforcement, I will visit the impact that social media has had in modern policing in a separate post. This article is going to focus mainly on Facebook because it's the most popular social site. Although Twitter allows for pictures and status messages, in my opinion it doesn't flow as well as Facebook does when it comes to timelines and instant messaging.
I remember my parents telling me how much fun their high school reunions were. They used to speak about how it was great to see people they hadn't seen in years and how much people change physically and mentally. Those who said they'd never think of having kids were now married with multiple children, and those who you'd never think would be successful were now supervisors at large companies. I remember my dad telling me how much he enjoyed his tenth year reunion because he got to finally see all of his friends who went into the military that he lost contact with because they were overseas. A fellow classmate really made an impact on how I view the benefits of Internet communication. Karen Engvik writes in her discussion post titled "Week Two Post" about how Facebook has allowed her to keep up communication with her brother in Afghanistan on a weekly basis. Where she really drives her point home though is by sharing that with instant messenger programs and youtube videos she is able to easily communicate with her mother who is deaf. Never did I really think of the advantages that these websites would have on the handicapped community as I do now.
Nowadays with the advancement of social media outlets, specifically Facebook, people can communicate through the Internet. At any time you can click on your friend's profile and in an instant see what's going on in their lives. Just by scrolling through the profile page you can see what they now look like, if they have kids, and see what they're doing for work since you got out of high school. The technology is definitely beneficial and it allows for people to catch up with what's going on in several different people's lives in a short period of time. The "status message" function that Facebook has set up allows us to see what's going on in people's lives at any particular moment of the day and depending how often that person updates their status, you can monitor how their entire day is going at home or work! Personally, a couple of friends that I went to high school with had husbands overseas and I was able to see how they were doing and I knew the time frame in which they were coming home just by keeping up with the status messages. While there's no question this immediate access to people's lives can be beneficial, it can be just as damaging.
We have come to rely so heavily on social media sites that most of us check our accounts multiple times per day. I think personally I check my facebook account more often than my email itself. But what about those people who don't have a Facebook account? Recently I ran into a high school classmate of mine. When I told her that I didn't attend our ten year reunion she said she never knew about the reunion because the invite itself was done through Facebook which she doesn't use. Feeling left out and ignored she said she was clearly better off not attending if that's how people are going to communicate and just assume that everyone has a Facebook account. Similarly I told her that the reason I didn't attend was because anyone who I wanted to still keep in contact with I was "friends" with on Facebook and I already knew what was going on in their lives, I didn't need to spend $100+ per plate to talk to people that I already kept up with in the first place.
Social media websites can also be dangerous when used in combination with your workplace. Many jobs will view someone's Facebook page prior to the candidate being hired now, as they can scroll through pictures to see if they participate in activities which would lead to character issues detrimental to the company. People have also been fired for posting negative things on Facebook or Twitter about their place of employment.
Finally the amount of people who have come to me and said they are getting a divorce as a result of their significant other "friending" and then secretly going out on dates with past school boyfriends/girlfriends has been astronomical. The ability to set a date up online through messaging and have absolutely no phone records leading back to the date itself has created quite a storm through relationships.
Despite some of the setbacks I really do believe that if used correctly, social media websites can be a fantastic tool. As is the case with Karen it has helped her communicate with someone close to her and opened doors that she may not have thought were possible before the Internet. As long as people realize that you cannot put a price on the value of face to face conversation and participate in doing so every so often in combination with social media outlets, the benefits definitely outweigh the negatives when it comes to social networking.
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