Social Networking: Helping or harming us?

Every time there is a conversation about social networking, it always makes me think of the horrific amount of time that has been wasted in my life on web sites like Facebook and Myspace. When I think about it more, these social networking sites certainly are capable of being used for good or evil. I would like to think that people would only use them for good—catching up with old friends or contacting classmates etc. We obviously know that this is not the case, and even if the “Ball State Ass Slapper” page happened to be created for research, it snowballed into something much worse. Personally, I believe personal networking sites are a good way to break down communication. They are desensitizing us. I have found that in using social networking sites over the past seven to eight years that I have almost become less of an effective communicator in some ways. It all started with AOL instant messaging and has now become Facebook and Twitter (which I do not use), and I believe that the continued use of these tools is further distancing us from what communication once looked like. I want to say personally that it has been a bit of a struggle for me to keep on task with blog posting for my classes because it is a form of social networking that I have not gotten accustomed to using, and in many ways, blogs seem really silly to me because people can express feelings easier without confrontation. Even though I can admit that blogging is very easy, much like instant messaging is easy because you can say things that you might not say face-to-face. These social networking tools end up getting used as ways for people to broadcast the latest tidbit of information about their daily activities, and a lot of times, there is no reason to do this. I think that people try to use these sites to stay in constant connection with their peers, and many times use them as a way to avoid loneliness. Communication channels have exponentially increased in volume over the past ten years, but I think we should think seriously about how necessary these things are in the future. As we know, many of us freely embrace these advances, while the rest of us willingly participate, yet question whether we should get rid of these forms of communication. After all, wouldn’t life be a little easier if the only account we were checking up on was our email account?