Social Networking

Many agree that social media is an phenomenal tool in this day and age, however there are the pros and cons of exposing what you do and don't want in the eyes of the public.  Stephen J. Dubnar with Freakonomics compiled a great article, Is MySpace Good for Society?  A Freakonomics Quorum.  Many in the quorum agreed that social networking is a great outlet for meeting new people and connecting with new and old friends.  They also agreed that it is also a fantastic business tool for obtaining knowledge on any business topic or for educational information.  Businesses can definitely benefit from social networking by advertising and marketing to their followers on social media.  Nicole Ellison, an assistant professor at Michigan State University stated that "...network sites continue to be embraced by businesses, non-profits, civic groups, and political organizations that value the connections these tools support.". 

Society definitely benefits from social networking with the vast options of networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.; not to mention the many options of dating websites and meet up groups on the net.  You can go from being single to marrying your bride from anther country online before meeting her in person in less than a week (a little humor).  Students benefit tremendously from social networking.  Ellison (assistant professor at Michigan State University) of the Freakonomics Quorum, also states "Undergraduates who used Facebook intensively had higher bridging social capital scores than those who didn't,...".  Advertising from business is a perk for both businesses and society in my eyes.  The business gets to promote their add on any one of the networks and consumers benefit from a product that they can use.

With every good there is always a bad side to things.  In Freakonomics Quorum, Martin Bailey, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and an advisor to the McKinsey Global Institute gave many examples of how technology can also decrease the quality of life for a society.  He listed ways that because society has adapted to modern technology that we lack a sense of face to face interaction.  We spend less time with each other talking and going out to catch up.  He mentions that with so much sharing on social media that people can enter a danger zone as to exposing too much of our lives.  There are predators out there waiting to harm us for what we expose on the net.  An example of this may be of recent reporting of Kim Kardashian being robbed in Paris at gunpoint of all her valuables.  She puts EVERYTHING on t.v., twitter and Instagram.  I guess, these guys were just sitting and waiting.  Society tends to be envious of the life style they believe that we live and in turn we become hated and resented against.  Doug Gross from CNN wrote an article on the term "Unfriend", in which the term derived from Facebook.  According to the Oxford dictionary, reported by Gross, "unfriend is a verb that means to remove someone as a friend on social networking site such as Facebook." 

Technology will continue to evolve in the future and we, as a society, will find new and innovative ways to make it do things to make our lives even easier to live for our own comfort, however the effects of how we interact with each other as a society will not be favorable.  People will continue not wanting to hold meaningful conversations face to face.  Human contact as far as socializing will not allow for the younger generations to hold face to face social gatherings.  Everything will be computerized and on line through network.