Social Networking

Social networking is a powerful form of new media that can be used in a variety of ways.

Individuals can use it to:

• stay connected with family and friends
• rekindle relationships with former classmates/coworkers
  
• establish new relationships
• tell the world what you’re doing (via Twitter)
• look for jobs

Corporations can use it to:

• maintain customer relationships
• “encourage collaboration and communication across teams,” like at IBM (Is MySpace Good for Society?)
• “attract and screen potential new employees through virtual world interactions” (IBM: What's Next? Your Future in Social Networking)
• scout new talent
• “allows users to share their online rolodexes” (NPR: Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting)

A primary benefit to social networking is its ability to allow users to keep in touch with family and friends easily. Other benefits come from using social networking as a means to recruit employees. Frank Langfitt discusses this in the NPR article, Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting. Langfitt writes about Maureen Crawford-Hentz, a professional recruiter for Osram Sylvania, who used LinkedIn to find a product marketing manager. Instead of having to call up everybody in her rolodex (to see if they knew somebody who fit the job description), she was able to find the perfect candidate with a click of the mouse. Similarly, interviewers can also use social networking sites to screen potential employees.

There are "dark sides" to social networking, however, and we probably hear more about them than we do about the benefits. Sadly, there are people who use social networking as a means to bully, stalk, harass, and prey on others. An example of this misuse was demonstrated in the MySpace suicide case of Megan Meier. Megan Meier was a Missouri teenager who committed suicide in 2006, after receiving horrible messages from a teenage boy who she had friended on MySpace. This teenage boy turned out to be a 49-year-old mother (of one of Megan's former friends), who created a phony MySpace account to harass Megan.

MySpace, Facebook, and other similar social networking sites are also homes to thousands of sexual predators. Early last month, "MySpace provided two state attorneys general the names of 90,000 registered sex offenders it had banned from its site in response to a subpoena." (MySpace Turns Over 90,000 Names of Registered Sex Offenders) This number is quite frightening!