Social Networking

Social networking sites have a variety of uses. There are some, like LinkedIn, which allow for people to search for jobs or employers to search for potential employees. Then there are other sites, such as MySpace which allows for people to interact globally, as well as, serving as a resource for small music groups to be heard and promoted. There are also sites like Facebook, which like MySpace, allows for interaction among users globally, a nice interface for online photo hosting and a good way to promote events and groups--even the Obama campaign utilized Facebook's extensive networking capabilities. The benefits of social networking sites are endless. Frank Langfitt, of NPR, states, "Professional recruiters have started hunting for job candidates using social networking technology," using such sites as Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn. These sites also allow for old friends, who perhaps haven't communicated for years, to reconnect and for people to have an easy way to organize events and monitor guest lists and event information.
However, not all social networking sites are so beneficial to society. There are a number of malicious gossip sites in which members can anonymously torment and criticize other members, or non-members of their schools in a public forum--e.g. sites such as JuciyCampus, CampusGossip and CollegeACB. Such sites have been described as having the potential to, "cause harm to reputations, with serious impacts on students if the messages are seen by future employers or potential suitors. Unlike slurs scrawled on bathroom walls, online posts can be more public and more lasting" (Young, Chronicle.com). One site, named PeoplesDirt (a peer-slander site for High School students), received so much negative feedback that "Maryland's attorney general opened an investigation into the site, describing it in a written statement as 'home almost exclusively to abusive, harmful, and embarrassing personal attacks on high-school-aged children'"--further exemplifying the potential dangers of certain social networking sites (Young, Chronicle.com).
Nevertheless, social networking sites have the potential to become even better. Facebook has added more features to make communication among users even easier (such as Facebook chat), and eventually even more advanced means of communication and networking will become standard, maybe instant text chatting will become obsolete and instant video chat will become the new way of online social networking.