Social Networking

When one thinks of social networking, the first thing that usually comes to mind is connecting with people on a personal level; but what about the use social networking sites for professional purposes? As social networking evolves, more and more corporations are incorporating it into their business practices. Frank Langfitt opens his article, “Professional recruiters have started hunting for job candidates using social networking technology—like the kind found on the popular sites MySpace and Facebook.” Besides the recruitment and hiring process, social networking technology is also used by business for marketing and advertisement.

The benefits of social networking include faster communication and the maintenance of large number of relationships/networks without having to connect with people individually. However, as with every other technology, there are negative effects to social networking. Privacy is a widely discussed issue with social networking. Lance Hoffman, Professor of Computer Science at George Washington University stated that “by giving up such information as their name, birth date, and a list of their network of friends, users are revealing far more than they know. Third-party applications, he argued, can take that data outside of the friendly confines of a social networking site and combine it with data from other sources to piece together enough information to steal a person's identity.”

In the future it would be interesting if based on your browsing history, social networking sites automatically matched you with people around the world with similar interest. However, in terms of the overall evolution of social networking technology, I am hoping that it will have its limits. It would be very harmful if social networking started to eliminate face to face interactions on a larger scale.

Sources:
Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting by Frank Langfitt, NPR, March 16, 2008. available from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6522523&sc=emaf

Knowledge@Wharton, "Leaving 'Friendprints': How Online Social Networks Are Redefining Privacy and Personal Security http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2262