Mediaboss Marketing

Are Social Networking Sites Good for Our Society?

47% of American adults used social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Classmates.com in 2011, up from 26% in 2008. [26] On social media sites like these, users may develop biographical profiles, communicate with friends and strangers, do research, and share thoughts, photos, music, links, and more.

Proponents of social networking sites say that the online communities promote increased interaction with friends and family; offer teachers, librarians, and students valuable access to educational support and materials; facilitate social and political change; and disseminate useful information rapidly.

Opponents of social networking say that the sites prevent face-to-face communication; waste time on frivolous activity; alter childrens brains and behavior making them more prone to ADHD; expose users to predators like pedophiles and burglars; and spread false and potentially dangerous information. Read more...

Proponents of social networking sites say that the online communities promote increased interaction with friends and family; offer teachers, librarians, and students valuable access to educational support and materials; facilitate social and political change; and disseminate useful information rapidly.

Opponents of social networking say that the sites prevent face-to-face communication; waste time on frivolous activity; alter childrens brains and behavior making them more prone to ADHD; expose users to predators like pedophiles and burglars; and spread false and potentially dangerous information.

SixDegrees.com, which existed from 1997-2001, is considered the first social networking site because it allowed users to create personal spaces and connect to friends online. Friendster, created in 2002, popularized social networking in the United States but was quickly outpaced by other social networking sites like: MySpace (2003), Facebook (2004), Twitter (2006), Pinterest (2009), and Google+ (2012). Facebook reported one billion monthly users worldwide on October 4, 2012, making it the most popular social networking site with one in seven people on the planet using the site. [142] Every day, Facebook manages 2.7 billion "Likes, 300 million photo uploads, and 2.5 billion status updates and check-ins. [143] Twitter, the second largest social networking site, had an estimated 107.7 million users in the United States (as of Jan. 31, 2012) [144] and 500 million worldwide users (as of Sep. 28, 2012). [172] Pinterest is the third largest social network with 23 million unique visitors in July 2012, followed by LinkedIn, Tagged, Google+, and MySpace [145] [146] 59% of all Internet users use at least one social networking site and 56% of social networking users are female. [26]

Social networking sites play a large role in shaping the political landscape. More than a quarter of US voters younger than 30 (including 37% of those 18-24 years old) reported that they obtained information about the 2008 Presidential campaign from social media. [151] On Nov. 3, 2008, the day before the US Presidential election, Democratic candidate Barack Obama had 2,379,102 Facebook supporters, 38% more than Republican candidate John McCain who had 620,359 supporters. [152]

On June 12, 2009, the White House announced, via the White House Blog, that it was joining Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, and Flickr in order to "create unprecedented opportunity to connect you to your government in order to obtain information and services and to participate in policymaking. [153] Joining the social media sites was part of the administrations efforts to meet President Obamas call to "reform our government so that it is more efficient, more transparent, and more creative. [154] On Sep. 16, 2009, The Washington Times broke a story that the White House had begun collecting and storing comments and videos posted on social networking sites, bringing invasion of privacy criticism. Defenders stated that the White House was simply complying with the Presidential Records Act, which requires the preservation of all presidential records. [155]

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo dubbed the 2012 election the "Twitter election. [156] All of the main 2012 presidential candidates had Facebook and Twitter accounts. Barack Obama and Mitt Romney maintained MySpace accounts, and Obama also has a Pinterest account. As of Sep. 8, 2011, 35 global heads of state had Twitter accounts; every US federal Cabinet agency and 84% of state governors were active on Twitter; and more than 40% of global religious leaders like the Dalai Lama and the Pope were on Twitter. [157] The 2012 presidential election set the record for most-tweeted event with more than 327,00 tweets per minute being sent when Barack Obama was announced the winner. The image of him and his wife that Obama posted upon his reelection with "Four more years became the most re-tweeted tweet with over 816,883 re-tweets as of Nov. 19, 2012 (breaking Justin Beibers record of over 200,000 re-tweets). [158] [159]

Read more:
Social Networking ProCon.org