Essay!

My essay was supposed to be about this topic: How do social media change our understanding of individual identity, with regard to the kinds of people we have in our social networks? But after doing some research and I have watched the new movie about how Facebook was invented, I would rather write an essay about how Facebook controls our life and how children and youth are exposed to these social networks.

Essay.

The world today is very controlled by our social networks. They control how we connect with other people. We are now able to exchange content like pictures and videos to each other wherever we are in the world. We use these networks as a connection channel, where we easily can reach each other and our personal life is not that private anymore. We love to share our personal information with other people. If we take a look at Facebook in particular, here we can become “friends” with whoever we want. But are they all our “friends”? We add the people that we do not actually know by heart, but we know who they are. Are we still willing to share all our information with them? Clearly we are.

When I was thirteen years old there were no such thing as social networks, and to get in touch of each other we used our “old” cell phones or went to each other houses. Our personal life was well covered unless we wanted to tell other people. These days it is normal that children even in primary school have Facebook. Is this really a smart thing? There are always a lot of teasing in this age group, is it wise to open for several ways to let them bullying each other? The development of Facebook has gone to far, and my opinion is that children that age should be outside playing, not sitting inside writing on Facebook.

A statistic survey about teens and social media says that “Content creation by teenagers continues to grow, with 64% of online teenagers ages 12 to 17 engaging in at least one type of content creation, up from 57% of online teens in 2004”, (teen and social media, 2008.) This shows that the teenage use of social network has increased and we can only imagine how it will be like in five years. Internet is a dangerous place for young people and the parents or guardians should set strict lines and teach the children about safety online.

“Social network sites (SNSs) such as such as Friendster, CyWorld, and MySpace allow individuals to present themselves, articulate their social networks, and establish or maintain connections with others”, (The Benefits of Facebook “Friends:” Social Capital and College Students’ Use of Online Social Network Sites, 23 aug, 2008). This is a very good description of what social networks are. These networks has not excited for very long. I remember I got my first Facebook profile when back in 2007. And when I have talked other friends about when they open theirs, they all respond with the year 2007. We have all heard about the new movie that is released about the beginning of Facebook, called “the social network”. It shows that Facebook started back in February 2004, but where only for Harvard students at first. The man behind Facebook is named Mark Zuckerberg, and he is worth billions of dollars these days. Facebook has spread worldwide, and everybody knows what Facebook is. “Created in 2004, by 2007 Facebook was reported to have more than 21 million registered members generating 1.6 billion page views each day (Needham & Company, 2007), (at el The benefits of Facebook.., 23. Aug, 2008). This shows how fast it reached people, and it is still growing.

But how does social networks like Facebook and other networks influence our life? Is it possible to get addicted to Facebook? I believe it is absolutely possible to become addicted to this network, and the younger people are when they start a profile on facebook, the higher the risk is. “The Internet has been linked both to increases and decreases in social capital. Nie (2001), for example, argued that Internet use detracts from face-to-face time with others, which might diminish an individual’s social capital”, (at el The benefits of Facebook.., 23.aug, 2008). I think this argument on how internet decreases people`s everyday social life is very interesting. We do talk a lot with friends and relatives on Facebook. Is this keeping us from actually talking to them face to face? I think people will become more “stay at home” persons as Facebook keep developing. There are always new apps and games and so on. And through Facebook you can see what goes on in people`s life. Some even have link to their own blog on their profile where they share even more information about themselves. Is Facebook and other networks replacing our real social life is a question I would like to raise. I think Facebook is going to be such a huge thing later on, even more that it is now. That might involve several risk as people becoming antisocial and are more willing to sit at home on Faceook than actually going out meeting friends and other familiar people. This is how predict the future. We are able to access Facebook wherever we are, on the phone, computers and so on. Soon there will be other more specialized technology on how we can be on Facebook constantly.

“The strong linkage between Facebook use and high school connections suggests how SNSs help maintain relations as people move from one offline community to another. It may facilitate the same when students graduate from college, with alumni keeping their school email address and using Facebook to stay in touch with the college community”, (et al The benefits of Facebook.., 23.aug, 2008). Facebook is a network where we are able to maintain contact with people we graduated with or went to a camp, concert, dated and etc. And when we go overseas to study like I have done, we are able to keep touch with the people at home. I have to admit that my Facebook use has increased after I came down here. I hardly used Facebook before, maybe three four times a week at max. I feelt there were more important things to do. I feelt talking to people face to face was the most important thing. I can understand the importance of Facebook to be able to have contact with friends and loved ones. But what I do not understand is why children and youth in primary school and the early years have to be exposed to Facebook and other networks in the same way adults are. Where are the parents? Back in Norway there is a young ten year old girl that has made a blog where she writes about her life as a ten year old. Children that age are not able to realize what is proper behavior or not, and other children write ugly comments on her post. This girl also uses video blog and the videos has been uploaded on you tube where people have remixed them to bully the girl. I think this is a really good example on how social networks can increase the bullying and teasing in this age group. My question is, should there be an age limit to some of these social networks? I think there should be restrictions on how old people should be before we have seven year olds with their own Facebook profile. There is a lot of people with wrong intentions out in the world and to maintain the security over our children there should be rules and restriction to the usage of these networks. The development in social networks is huge, and new ones are invented all the time, my concern is how the children and the youth are being exposed to them and how it is making them even more inactive as we have seen with video and computer games. I hope that these social networks take this growing problem seriously before it is out of control.


Sources: http://en.scientificcommons.org/51860816 and http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00367.x/full