THE CULT OF SOCIAL NETWORKING??

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dha1k7yIxcY

Despite some of the negative aspects of socializing online it remains a dominant form of communication amongst younger generations. Is it the responsibility of the parent to monitor the coninuous usage or should teenagers be trusted to do so on their own? I know for myself access to the internet was not readily available until the late 90's and it felt like an explosion of information and the things I was capable of doing online. My appetite has since curbed as I use the internet for more creative ways to work for me in terms of my career goals and education, but as teenagers struggle to find their identity, is the internet a place to spend so much time testing out different parts of themselves with no actual human interaction?
Social networking is a way people communicate and share their ideas through blogging, videos, photo sharing , etc. As part of the networking experience people use websites like Myspace.com and Facebook.com to create customized profiles to the interests of each individual user. I am a graduate student enrolled in a Media studies program and as part of my final project for one of my courses I wanted to study the social networking habits of young people. There has been many studies that link a high percentage of teenagers spending a large part of their time online connecting with "friends." I wanted to do a survey asking general questions regarding the type of technological/social tools used and how it affect the way they communicate. What I discovered based on the survey alone was that social networking was not just for people between the ages of 12-16, a large portion of the surveyors were between 17-28. This demographic used the same social tools such as (ipods, cell phone, Myspace, Facebook, etc). "Despite the garish look of MySpace profiles, the service was popular because it let people customize their pages, embed music and share videos with other friends. "-mediashift
"The year 2007 has been marked by the booming growth of MySpace rival Facebook, which started life in 2004 as a closed network for college students, and later high school students. Facebook made two important business decisions that led to its recent rise: 1) opening the site to all comers, and 2) letting people create mini-applications or widgets for the site. "-mediashift
The average amount of time spent online for personal , informational or research purposes was between 0-6 hours per day. Some positive aspects mentioned about the social networks was it being inexpensive, ease of use to connect to friends, and "blurs time and space constraints." Some negative points about social networking could be impersonal, addicting, the saturation of ads, "passive way of keeping in touch", time consuming, privacy issues and the questioning of whether the people you meet online are really who they portray on their profiles. Social networking continues to be a deep impacting force in our every day lives, as part of my continued research , take the time to fill out my survey , let me know what you think. http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/survey-intro.zgi?p=WEB227RZRC3PNS or leave video, photos at my Facebook http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=742745294 or Facebook : Marie Asap

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