Do you want an effective way to catch up with old friends? How about a convenient way to find out what your friends, family and other loved ones are up to? Maybe you want to stay up-to-date on your favorite hobby, sport, book, TV show or movie. How about following your favorite bands, artists, actors, athletes and celebrities? Even if you’re bored you can hop on and play some games with friends! The upsides of social networks seem limitless.
One of the most important ways that social networks are used is to stay close to friends, family and relatives in an effective way. In the past, one might need to send e-mails, make phone calls or send letters to communicate with people far away. However, these 3 methods of communication can be inconvenient and inefficient at times. E-mails work well, but sometimes setting those up can become a lengthy process. Making phone calls can be very unreliable because you have to hope that the person on the other side has time to talk, and sending letters is just too slow, and an even more lengthy process than e-mail. Social networks can avoid all these issues by allowing users to quickly send messages to other users nearly instantly, while completely privately. If the recipient isn’t online at that particular moment, they can check it when they are online, if they are online, they will be notified immediately. It is a quick and effective way to communicate. Social networks have become such an effective way to communicate, that they are becoming one of the leading forms of communication. Laurie DiMauro reports in her statistics entitled Communication Choices made by Teens with Access to Multiple Technologies compared with all Teens that teens with access to multiple technologies use social networking sites to send private messages as means to communicate only less often than cell phones, (both calls and texts) and instant messages. (This is often done on social networking sites as well!) In another set of statistics called Percentage of Online Adults who use Twitter or another Status Update Service, by Demographic Group, DiMauro reports that 19% of all adults use Twitter or other status updating services.
Another way in which millions of people enjoy social networks is by following celebrities that they love. Nowadays one can be nearly certain that their favorite celebrities have Twitter or Facebook accounts that fans can subscribe to or follow to stay up-to-date on their activities. In the article Online Social Networks, the author points out that “during the 2008 presidential campaign many candidates, including Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and John McCain, had support pages on Facebook and MySpace.” From athletes to actors, celebrities to politicians, the possibilities are endless. Social network users all across the planet are staying updated on their favorite famous people. Do you want to know what your favorite actor is doing? How about what your favorite athlete is thinking? With technology today, you can find out in just a few clicks.
Another form of convenience that social networks provide is instant feedback. By posting updates in the form of discussions, debates and inquiries, one can be assured that there will be numerous people that have a comment to make. Instant feedback might is one of the most important features that social networks have to offer. With ease, one can find out what a wide range of people think about a certain issue or idea. Some social networking sites, such as Facebook, take this one step further. By posting a link to an article that is interesting, discusses something you’re interested in, or is just funny, the social networking site will provide a title, as well as a quick introduction about the article! This lets the viewers know exactly what the article will be about, and might spark some interest.
While social networking sites have many features that are useful in providing convenience, let’s not forget that they also provide numerous forms of entertainment. As mentioned earlier, you might find a funny picture or article online that you’d like to share with all your friends and family. Nearly all social networking sites allow users to post pictures, as well as post links to funny things they might find. You can be assured that social networks will provide some form of entertainment to all different kinds of users. Facebook takes this to the next level by allowing users to actually play games with friends. By using certain “apps” on Facebook, you can play all different kinds of games with your friends! There are hundreds of games and quizzes you can take just for fun! Then afterwards you can see how well you stack up against your friends and family, or what the outcomes of the quizzes they take are. Imagine what social networking sites in the future will have!
No comments:
Post a Comment