What is a social networking site?

Social networking sites are places where people go online to meet others with similar interests and values, as well as to communicate, originate plans, go on dates, etc that would be done traditionally over the phone. According to Danah Boyd, a Ph. D student and researcher on sites like myspace.com: “Structurally, social network sites are a wicked between a yearbook and a community web location. MySpace is a social network site where individuals acquire digital profiles and link to others (“friends”) within the system — similar to sharing home pages.” Another definition of a social networking site (SNS) is also provided: “(1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) notify a list of other users with whom they fragment a connection, and (3) conception and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system.” (Ellison, Boyd, 2007). Clearly there are many ways to define a social networking site. It’s easy to see the applications of a site like MySpace, which used to be just an idea in the minds of Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe. Boyd also mentions how a social networking status can be useful for today’s youths: “By giving youth access to a public of their peers, MySpace provides a fertile ground for identity development and cultural integration. Youth view MySpace as a place where they can be who they are, joke around with friends and make certain to stay in the loop about everything that is going on around them” (Boyd, 2006).

What is the big controversy over sites like Myspace.com?

Social networking sites are the topic of a tug-of-war between two clearly established views. Not everyone feels one way or another about these sites, but for the purpose of this paper and to determine their effect on society we will investigate both sides. Sites like MySpace are technological advancements, so like any technological advancement it wouldn’t succeed unless it met the standards set for original technologies. It is useful, a symbol of social prestige, and also compatible with a enormous portion of today’s population that are already familiar with the internet (namely today’s youth). The question some people may ask is “Is MySpace.com an example of a technology that was beneficial at first but later turned out to be detrimental in some unseen way? “

Looking at the user base of most of these sites, a sizable portion of users are young people 25 and under, although there are certainly many older adults who have profiles as well. One of the benefits of the sites is certainly their connectivity – its what they were built for. The thought of being able to meet people

like me no matter how remote could be considered one of the greatest achievements of the internet. “Some sites are designed with specific ethnic, religious, sexual orientation, political, or other identity-driven categories in mind. There are even SNSs for dogs (Dogster) and cats (Catster), although their owners must manage their profiles.” (Ellison, Boyd, 2007). On the flipside, people are so easily segregated into groups of likeminded individuals that there isn’t really as much diversity in most cases as you would expect from a social networking site.

One issue that can’t be ignored is privacy. When it comes to sharing oneself on sites like these, as you inevitably must do, a user can give too much information and become victimized in a number of ways. This is the biggest jabber with social networking sites and has become accepted in the news as of late; some examples are crimes where a young girl was stalked and raped, identities stolen, and so on. “Unfortunately, predators lurk wherever youth hang out. Since youth are on MySpace, there are bound to be predators on MySpace. Yet, fewer than .01 percent of all youth abductions nationwide are stranger abductions: Youth are at far greater risk of abuse in their beget homes and in the homes of their friends than they ever are in digital or physical publics.” (Boyd, 2006) A lot of people look at MySpace unfavorably because of how “easy” it is to victimize the youth that use it, but really its not flaws in MySpace that result in these cases, it’s the users giving too much information on their profiles. Did you know that by just giving a phone number on your profile someone can find your full name, address, and a whole list of other personal information? Sites that offer “reverse phone searches” allow you to pay a fee and procure a elephantine report on someone by searching for their phone number.

When it comes to privacy, are the youths that use social networking sites just ignorant? Sometimes this may be the case, where these sites are relatively new and most parents having no idea how they work, who is there to teach the younger users what is appropriate? With younger and more na�ve users and older more cunning predators it is inevitable that these things will happen, but some sites have measures to prevent it. Facebook.com for example, only allows you to interact with people in your network (i.e. School, Work, and Region). So if you’re a part of the CMCC network, you can only talk to others in that network. This cuts down on “strangers” sending friend requests and mysterious messages, especially if the network is small. Of course, there will always be naysayers who feel negatively about MySpace and other sites, regardless of the practical uses and benefits of them. “People go to MySpace to socialize, to find people to date when single, when dating and even when married. To whine, to bastardize the English language. It’s all about the relationships, quite a few unhealthy, and so it’s easy to see where there is a connection between this residence and western societies’ moral standings, as well as taste in entertainment.” (Thomas, 2006).

There is always a middle ground, MySpace and Facebook can be used safely to socialize with unique friends and to effect new friends within your social circles without becoming a victim of virtual crime. The media makes it sound more inappropriate than it really is, and in reality these cases are small. One rarely mentioned aspect of these sites is when they bring people together against all odds. A girl from the U.S and a guy from the Middle-East were brought together using MySpace.com. Though the police initially though he had kidnapped her when they found out she took a plane to his country, they were no more than a young couple bridging a gap they couldn’t have done without MySpace. Stories like these are everywhere and remain unreported by most of the media, I myself have a similar story of meeting my primary other through a social networking site, and we’re still together to this day, but that’s for another paper.

So what effects are observable from using sites like these?

Research is unexcited being done on the cultural and societal effects these sites have. Because these sites are relatively new much of the research is still being done and hasn’t been published yet. “Scholars are documenting the implications of SNS use with respect to schools, universities, and libraries. For example, scholarship has examined how students feel about having professors on Facebook (Hewitt & Forte, 2006) and how faculty participation affects student-professor relations (Mazer, Murphy, & Simonds, 2007).” (Ellison, Boyd, 2007). Researchers are also studying the users, their practices, and the ways in which urge, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and religion affect their networking experience and how youths use these sites to develop an identity.

One effect these sites, as well as others, have on today’s young users is behavioral. How many times have you heard of a kid assaulting his mother because she tried to get between him and his computer or TV? This is an effect that shouldn’t be attributed to the sites themselves, but the generation that uses them. One could even assume these sites feed on the attention deficits of most of today’s youth. “Teens also use many forms of media simultaneously. Fifteen- to eighteen-year-olds average nearly 6 1/2 hours a day watching TV, playing video games, and surfing the Net, according to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey.” (BusinessWeek, 2005). Another behavioral effect may be a lack of a real connection between people. With so many people easily coming and going, how can kids develop a connection like they would traditionally? These connections aren’t the same quality friendships most people developed when they were kids, and these may have side effects later. Is it possible kids may not learn how to make friends outside of virtual reality? Consider this: Nearly every day a user of MySpace will be spammed with messages and friend requests from people who are “barely 18″ with a name like Christy, Jessica, Ashley, etc and a hot profile characterize asking them to “check out their Webcam“. This could gravely effect a child’s development, especially if they are na�ve enough to click on these “webcam profiles” and who knows what they’ll gape. There may even be a connection between kids who experience things like this early and kids who grow up to become promiscuous and have unsafe sex, although that could be a whole other topic entirely.

Clearly the most profound conclude these sites have is to effect children and their development. Adults who utilize MySpace are not so innocent and are usually smarter in how they employ it; they also don’t spend as remarkable of their life on MySpace as kids have been known to do. At the same time, most parents are unable to monitor their children’s activities on MySpace, either because they don’t understand it or don’t know about it. This leaves a large portion of child rearing to sites like MySpace, and that’s not at all what it was meant for. Of course it’s not all bad, as a user of MySpace for the past 3 years it’s become a daily practice for me and allows me to connect with many of my friends from high school. The spam messages are annoying, but easily deleteable, and predators don’t have enough information to find me. Once people catch over the risks of using these sites (which are really just the risks of using the internet itself), they are extremely useful and practical. Maybe it’s not so much that these sites control and have an enact on us, but that we let them or are susceptible to distinct influences.

So what have we learned? Sites like MySpace and Facebook as well as other social networking sites are not inherently bad, but they can be used that way. Predators can expend these sites like they’re a virtual gold mine, while children and adults alike can simply interact with their peers. Privacy can be an issue, but only if you don’t know how to protect yourself. “The only misfortune of MySpace, given its large user deplorable, is actually the main danger that exists in reality, and that is letting your guard down. People seem to forget that there is still some reality in virtual reality, and crimes can and will be committed.” (Thomas, 2006) These sites only have an effect on the users if they let them, many people log on for a few minutes to a half-hour and that’s fine; others may log on for several hours, making it harder to resist some of the influences these sites have. There is not a lot of concrete evidence on what these influences are and how they affect certain demographics. “Methodologically, SNS researchers’ ability to make causal claims is limited by a lack of experimental or longitudinal studies. Although the situation is rapidly changing, scholars still have a limited understanding of who is and who is not using these sites, why, and for what purposes, especially outside the U.S.” (Ellison, Boyd, 2007)

So with great success, and some critical failures, social networking sites have become a useful innovation of the information age, so I leave you with this quote: “Social technologies succeed when they fit into the social lives and practices of those who remove with the technology.” (Boyd, 2006)

Works Cited

Boyd, Danah. “Friendster Lost Steam. is MySpace Unbiased a Fad? ” 21 Mar. 2006. 18 Dec. 2007 .

Boyd, Danah M., and Nicole B. Ellison. “Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 13 (2007). 18 Dec. 2007 .

“The MySpace Generation.” BusinessWeek 12 Dec. 2005. 19 Dec. 2007 .

Thomas, Lelia K. “MySpace, a Virtual Mirror of Society.” LeliaThomas.Com. 28 Aug. 2006. 19 Dec. 2007 .

Wright, Sarah H. “Experts Discuss MySpace Issues.” Massachusetts Institute of Technology, News Office. 24 May 2006. 19 Dec. 2007 .

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