Social Networking

Social networking is basically used to connect people in every aspect of their lives. Various and complex platforms/ websites are established in corporation to easy access and correspondence among colleges. Institutions like CUNY are using it connect students and teachers as well as student to student by setting up Blackboard for all the college portals so students and teachers can communicate frequently and openly. Such platforms are beneficial because they have shrunk the gaps in communication.

It has also apparently become an important enigma in defining one. According to the article titled Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting by Langfitt, Frank published in NPR, recruiters and companies are looking at the social networking websites as Linkdin before hiring potential candidates. It is a way for candidates to present themselves in certain light they would want others, in this case recruiters, to see. It definitely saves a lot of time and money for both the candidate and the recruiters which would have been spent contacting and setting up interviews and what not.

The aspect of social networking that is somewhat alarming  is issues of privacy. As discussed in  the article:  Leaving 'Friendprints': How Online Social Networks Are Redefining Privacy and Personal Security, users of websites such as facebook or myspace make whole profiles explaining, discussing updating their personal lives, relationships and families that it is easier to judge and use that information to target even steal their identity. Such people can also become target of telemarketers and other business's interests not necessarily illegal.

I think social networking has become an essential component of our lives and there is no escape possible, but it does not have to rule our lives as I see people in trains, buses and sidewalks engrossed in their smartphones checking  social networking websites and updating minute by minutes status. I never  thought that terms as cyber bullying would be possible to coin when I was in high school. The technology is progressing at unfathomable speed and we hold the reins as consumers to lead it in either direction.