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Social Networking: Does It Do More Good To Us Than Bad??

Social Networking: Does it do More Good to Us than Bad? Social Networking, a word so common among youngsters in the present has somewhat taken over their world. It has become so popular among the hip and young society of today, that it has become almost a way of life for them. Walk into any college computer lab in the US and you’re bound to see dozens of students logged onto a social network (SN). In the last few years with faster internet connections coming into service, the use of social networks have sky rocketed; especially among young adults. Since social networking has become such a controversial topic these days, I decided to conduct my research project on the pros and cons of social networking. Has it done more good to society than bad? These questions deserve to be answered because as more people move towards these new modes of communication, the higher the influence it will have on the society as a whole. In my point of view I think that these virtual communities are changing the way people communicate with one another to an incredible degree. Now that I had a sound knowledge of what SN’s were, I turned to the scholarly article _“Social Networking, Gender and Friending – An analysis of My space user profiles” by Mike Thelwall of University of Wolverhampton_ to get a knowledge of who exactly uses SN’s. In this article Mike thoroughly explores and investigates the demographics of SNs. His key findings include the following, The median age for SN users is 21 and slightly younger teenagers Its youngest members are most likely to be females although the majority is small Teen users have more friends than average which is usually more than 90 The friendship circle sizes approximately follow a power law of distributions with 3 interpretations of friends, close friends, acquaintances and strangers Females are more interested in friendships than males Males are more interested in dating or serious relationships...