Have you ever created a Facebook? How about a MySpace? Twitter? What do all these names have in common? They are all websites where friends, family and work groups can interact and share pictures, tell how they feel, and make comments on people’s status. These websites are all called “social networking sites.” Sites like Facebook and Twitter are some of the many adopted social networking sites used every single day either at home, work, or in some instances, school. The amounts of people who use these sites everyday are astounding. According to Social-Media-Optimization, the last top three rankings of social networking sites in the world, from 2009 come in this following order: 1.MySpace; 2. Facebook; 3. Twitter. These are all sites that are overused and sometimes, unsafe.

The big questions are: “Is social networking good for our society, and is it overused?” The answer to this prevailing question is most likely, yes. According to ProCon, of the amount of time spent daily on the computer, 17% of all internet use goes to social networking sites. It may not seem like a lot of time, but for internet use around the country or let alone the whole world is quite astonishing. Time spent on these sites has increased drastically 83% from 2008 to 2009! Also from ProCon, the criminal rate has gone up to. I mean this by today’s term for internet fraud, “phishing.” This “phishing” has grown at an alarming rate coming in at least 240% from 2008 to 2009! So when someone asks, “is social networking really good for our society?” The answer is clearly, a flat out no.

Communicating on Facebook or MySpace has been a major joy to people around the world. But what these people don’t realize is that communicating among these websites is ruining the way people communicate in person. I am a teenager and I understand how this works. If a guy talks to somebody, most likely for guys, a girl or whoever, and you are comfortable talking to them over the website. They chat for a while and everything is going smooth as gravy. Then, you say something you wouldn’t normally say in person and it gets kind of awkward. What’s even more awkward is that maybe the person on the other end of the screen he/she is typing to misunderstands the tone of voice, or in this case, text that they are sending to the person. The next day at school, the two people make eye contact with that girl or guy and you feel funny. What you are feeling is awkwardness. They try to avoid all communication with that person until they get home and talk to them yet again over Facebook or what have you. This is what I’m talking about. I’m sure every teenager who has an account to a social networking site has experienced this before. What happened to the good old days when you just called the person up to see what’s happening?
Applying for jobs nowadays are somewhat different than what they use to be. Did you know that employers look at MySpace, Facebook, and most other social networking sites to check who their applicants are? Dailytech says that an online survey called CareerBuilder took a survey and concluded that out of 3,169 hiring managers, 22 percent of them check online profiles to job applicants. Also concluded on the site, statistics were shown that applicants who did have a profile on one of the named social networks, most of them either spoke of drinking alcohol or doing drugs, provocative pictures or information posted about themselves, or had poor communication skills. The way people put information out on the internet today is no wonder why some people don’t get jobs. People need to watch what they put out there on the internet because you never know what may come back to haunt you.
So, is social networking really good for our society today? After telling how social networking is used a lot and what it is used for, what are your views on social networking sites? Are some people going to think twice about owning a MySpace, a Facebook, or a Twitter? If I had a say in people’s opinions, I would most definitely say I would have to think twice. I do own a profile on one or two of these sites and just doing research on it has changed my views vastly.

Social networking IS overused and in some cases abused. Have we really come to the point where we have to look at people’s personal lives just to get an accurate depiction about what to expect at work? Do we really want to sink to that level?