Social Networking

2009-09-30T05:45:00.001-07:00

The PBS presentation demonstrates the teenagers and how they make use of the internet. While parents at home believe that their child is on the computer doing homework, the children are actually on social networking sites chatting with others. Most teenagers have myspace and they put up pictures and videos that make them seem much older than they really are. One of the girls on the video stated that if her parents saw half of the things on her myspace, she would start crying. This clearly shows that parents are not aware of what their children are doing online. Teenagers believe that the web is a place where they can do all sorts of things and their parents wouldn’t even be aware of it. Even children, seven-year-olds, use the web to socialize, while playing online games such as club penguin. Many parents don’t know how to use the web and that’s a major issue linked to the problem. I think the first step to the issue of teenage social networking would be to have classes for parents to help them learn about the sites their children join. If children knew that they were being watched by their parents, they wouldn’t do most of the things they do online.

The “How Obama Did It” article demonstrates the importance of social networking during Obama’s campaign. Obama’s social networking site, www.my.barackibama.com, raised millions of dollars in donations. One hundred and four thousand Texans had joined Obama’s social networking site and the site enabled them to download the information of the people in their neighborhood to get out and vote. This played a major role in the number of votes Obama received during his campaign. I wasn’t aware of Obama’s social networking site, and it surprised me to see how much it accomplished, with the millions of dollars in donations, and bringing Barack Obama to be the current president today.

The Second Life is an online game that allows its players to build anything they can imagine. It is now being used by students and organizations in ways that are far more than games. The students were able to start their own business online and sell clothing, cars and housing. Through this business, the students were able to socialize with one another. Professors at the university thought this was a great way of building and testing entrepreneurial skills. I agree with the professors because the students get to practice and develop the skills of entrepreneurs while socializing with others in the same field. This might have risks such as not knowing who you’re really socializing with since it’s over the web, but that’s just something students have to be cautious with and not trust everyone they socialize with.

Second Life isn’t only being used by students to socialize, but also by organizations that are involved with helping abused children. Second Life enabled the abused children to overcome their disabilities and socialize with one another online much more comfortably than they would in real life. The children who had troubles being understood by others, found it more useful to socialize over the web since the things needed to be said could just be typed and understood. I think Second Life is a good way to socialize for the abused children but it is very important that children are comfortable socializing in person rather than through the web. The web isn’t the safest place to socialize since anyone can act as anyone else online. The organizations should seek to bring children together and have them socialize in person.