Social Networking

                Social Networks such as Facebook, MySpace, etc all have their ups and downs. For example, corporations that are looking for future employees can use Facebook as a source to determine whether or not he/she qualifies for the job. This forces people to have a formal Facebook layout so nothing can jeopardize the job opportunity.  They can tell who you are just by looking at your Facebook account.  But there is a downside to this and that is the invasion of privacy. According to the article “Who Cares About Facebook Privacy? Students Do” by Marc Parry, young adults are actively engaged when managing their privacy settings. They don’t want their information to be leaked to the public so they restrict it where only friends can see the information. But corporations always find a way around it so privacy is a big issue in social networking; this is considered as the “dark side” of technology.

                According to another article “Carnegie Mellon students to exploit social networks to predict success of Internet startups” by Alpha Doggs, students are using the Delphi Method (a forecasting technique which involves panels and questionnaires to find a consensus of opinion) to innovate the next Google or Facebook.  For example, it can help decide where you want to place your investments in. This can benefit us in a way such that we can make our moves depending on certain scenarios that can happen in the near future.

                So what do I think about the future of these technologies? I think it will make social networking more reliable and convenient for us but at the same time it can hurt us. One reason is that we would talk a majority of the time through these mediums. I think real life meetings can speed the establishment of personal connections. But in the long run, the community will be able to talk to each other more efficiently.