Social Networking

When it comes to social networking, and it's benefits; there are a few things that come to mind. From a corporate point of view, the recruiting process can be facilitated via some form of social media such as Facebook or Google+. A company can engage directly with possible or existing customers in a much more comfortable manner, rather than cold marketing techniques previously used. In terms of societal impact, social networking is a great effective tool to communicate with a vast majority of people, many times the reason can be either personal or work related as well. New technologies benefit many trades as well as many people, let's take schools as one example. If you need to show students a terrain or do an interview with an interesting person, you now have the option because of modern technology. As we see in an article written by Bridget McCrea named The Journal: "He said, 'Hey, my mom knows a scientist,'" recalled Lusk, "so we were able to get in touch with Dr. Isern via e­mail­­through that parent contact­­and get our first online field trip set up." At the time, Isern was in the Antarctic working on several research projects. Amenable to the idea, Isern worked with Lusk to set up a 45­minute session using a laptop computer, webcam, and Skype's communication software." There are many benefits from this new age style of social interacting, but many speculate that there may be a dark side to all of this. This may be true, since data mining and constant surevillance and privacy issues are and will continue to be a thorn in the side of all of this. Even though, I believe the power of good or evil is present with everything that is done and used. One might use a knife to slice meat, while a murderer uses the same object to murder someone. It lies in the hands of those responsible enough to interact within social networking environments, you must take it seriously because even though the world is digital; it reflects the physical world around us. We must accept these new technologies and modern spins on traditional methods, as stated by Andrew Savikas in his article Media: Don't fear new technologies: "It’s ironic that we’re so bad at dealing with change, because it’s something we face constantly–though arguably never before at the current rate. But taking a moment to look backward in order to gain perspective on what’s ahead offers two benefits: It reminds us how common big changes are in our cultural history (and that we nearly always end up better off in the end). It also reminds us that the way things have looked throughout our lives and careers is certainly no more “natural” than anything that has come before or will come later." Let's use modernized tools like social networking for the benefit of society as a whole, for the good far outweighs the evil if used for positive reasons. How might social networking change, or better yet; evolve? One day, I believe virtual reality headsets will be used in conjunction with social networking platforms. Let's imagine for a second that you have the need to log in to facebook, sure thing; just put on these VR goggles and let it scan your eyeballs in order to securely log in. Speak to post status updates, and swipe the images displayed in front of you to scroll through them. I imagine this is the direction we might be headed into currently.

Citations:

1. McCrea, Bridget, The Journal 9.06.12 Taking Students Where No School Bus Can Go - The Journal.pdf  https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxiYXJ1Y2huZXdtZWRpYXxneDozNDg1ZTMzOWRjODhiZTFj
2. Media: Don't Fear New Technologies by Andrew Savikas, Forbes.com, February 19, 2010. https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxiYXJ1Y2huZXdtZWRpYXxneDo3ZTNhMWI5MTRhMDUzZjY