Is online social networking inevitably a good thing?

Kennedy Ihewuokwu

What are the first things you do in the morning? You check your email, facebook, weather, and online news? Some of us, who usually don’t log on to computer, can quickly know what is going on through our cell phones. Most times, these daily rituals are done before we even brush our teeth. But, are all these technology and networking inevitably a good thing? Do they affect our behavior or shape the way we go about our daily activities?

As I walked out of my apartment, I saw a friend that I met some days earlier. He lived in an apartment next door. It amazed me that he had been living there for more than a year and I never knew. Further discussions prompted that we add each other on face book. On facebook? Yes, that is the easiest buzz around. You can see someone’s information without asking for it. Facebook permits users the luxury of keeping in touch with anyone. Wikipedia allow us to look up anything. Google allows us to search for answers, tips or information from how to calculate cross-elasticity of demand to Engineering economics.

According to facebook statistics on their website, there are more than 400 million active users. More than 5 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each week. About six billion minutes spent each day worldwide. The statistics are very obvious, because even in classrooms, I see students commenting and chatting on facebook while lectures are going on.

Aside from grades, the overuse of technology has been proven to affect us in other areas of life. In some ways, texting ruins our spelling. If you text more frequently, then you know what I’m talking about. These days we text almost everything in abbreviation: “ROFL” in place of “rolling on the floor laughing, that is the funniest abbreviate I even seen” “ILY” for “I Love You,” “WTH” meaning “What the heck?” or “TTYL” instead of “Talk to you later.”

Technology has changed some basic skills in life or the workforce, but what about real life social interaction? Text messages or IMs to me are totally unexciting, and can convey little of what a person is actually saying. Tone, intonation of voice, body language, and eye-contact are all lost with these new technologies. Many of us know more than 80% of our facebook friends but it is obvious that we don’t know any of our neighbors. If we ascertain where we have our full privacy, applications loaded facebook will definitely not be. Most of our facebook friends live hundreds of miles away, and we will typically receive an update about what they do. Maybe, it is not our business to know what our neighbors do, but what about having someone to talk with when everything seems lonely.

It’s regular knowledge that employers are online looking for the latest talent and consistent workers. Many companies and organizations have Facebook and MySpace pages hoping to make helpful connections. So how do you balance your own personal identity in relation to your peers and the image you want to project to employers?

A friend of mine cleaned most of his information and deleted some of his pictures from facebook and I asked him why. The company he worked for now use facebook to connect with their employees and clients and he wouldn’t want to share all his information. So is technology and social networking affecting our behavior? Research says yes, if you doubt, then ask Google search. The question on if it affects us negatively or positively is up to you to decide. You can do the personal research, or statistics. When you get online to network, calculate the amount of time you spend and what necessary things you did. How do we connect with people physically and how we connect with people on online networking. How frequent do we change our information online for it to suit our present situation. How many friends do we have on online networking sites and what percentage of them can we tell just one thing about her/him.