How can blogs & social media be used for positive changes?

Juan Pablo Naranjo                                      November 23/2012

“Social media is like a snowball rolling down the hill. It’s picking up speed. Five years from now, it’s going to be the standard.” – Jeff Antaya, chief marketing officer of Plante Moran

Social media and technology have helped the society in many ways. What would the war look like if communication had never existed? Social media, chatting, social networks and phones are kind of an evolution of the first letter. But, are these social media services benefitting the society, or, instead are they affecting negatively the place we live in?

We can say that social networks such as Facebook, twitter, blogger and Skype can be really handy if we need to communicate with the people we appreciate that are far away from our place. Thanks to Skype, we can chat and video chat with the people we haven’t seen in so many time or stay in touch with Facebook and twitter with the people and stuff we like. We can also take advantage of Facebook and Windows Live Messenger to chat with all the people we know and appreciate. The problem with all these awesome services the Internet has to offer us is that people are abusing these and are starting to do inappropriate things on the web such as cyber-bullying and online intimidation. What can we do to stop this whole network abuse?

As to the negative aspects of social networking and social media we can say that the consequences that cyber-bullying and infiltration in private networks have brought us are as serious as people doing drugs and alcohol and even, in the most serious case, people committing suicide. Another example of the negative effects that social media has brought to society may be that people are abusing others’ people private space. Some social networks have a lack of security options that are allowing hackers to enter to other peoples’ personal and private space. People are violating these spaces that can also lead to the consequences mentioned above. Another fact can also be that people are falsificating their identity to fool other people and that can turn into problems as fast as lightning.

Now that we know what are the problems that social networks have brought us, should we delete social media from our society? Even though social media has its negative effects it also has positive effects. Social media has benefitted the world in an absurd way. Thanks to e-mails, phones, messages, chat and Internet we can communicate with many people from all over the world. It has helped business with services as video calls, e-mails, presentations and phones. Thanks to them, big companies can set arguments and develop. Thanks to chat, and instant messaging friends and family can communicate at any time even though they are far away. What can we do to the negative aspects? People are abusing of the services social media has provided us. Social networks should have a better security as to the privacy of people. Better methods for security answers and passwords should be implemented to provide a better experience for the user and to avoid all the severe consequences it brings. In conclusion, we can say that we have to balance all positive and negative aspects of social media to avoid any kind of problems.

Bibliography:

• http://www.buzzle.com/articles/how-does-social-media-affect-relationships.html
• http://shareablemedia.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Shareable-Media-An-Introduction-to-Social-Media-Marketing.pdf
• http://socialnetworking.lovetoknow.com/Negative_Impact_of_Social_Networking_Sites