Social Networking

Social Networking...it's growing at an enormous rate and is not limited to just one use. It can be used for many other reasons besides staying connected with your friends. These technologies can also be used my corporations to recruit or screen potential employees, market new products, and to solidify the communication between different levels of management. Technologies like social networking provide benefits and downsides for society. One of the benefits, helping corporations recruit potential employees, as mentioned earlier is exemplified in "Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting"  by Frank Langfitt, where a recruiter Maureen Crawford-Hentz states, "Social networking technology is absolutely the best thing to happen to recruiting - ever."  Site's such as Linkedin allow individuals to post details of their past and current work experiences for prospective employers to look at and potentially contact. Some of the "dark sides" of social networking are the advents of cyber bullying. This is shown in the sad case where a mother of a colleague of a young girl created a Myspace account and posed as a 16-year-old boy and befriended the girl and then denounce her causing her to commit suicide. Additionally, as one blogger commented on the blog "Is MySpace Good for Society" on Freakonomics, some people become addicted to the information on the computer and withdraw from personal contact. Such withdrawal has major drawbacks in the development of an individual in both their psychological and social lives.

Overall, Social Networking is a great technology and while not perfect, the pros outweigh the cons and it will continue to evolve. Maybe in the near future social networking sites will all integrate and become one big social network where we can track comments and posts across networks so that we don't have to log into multiple accounts in order to respond to different friends because having multiple accounts can cause confusion between distinguishing which comments or posts are for which site.