The purpose of my topic is to look into the influence of social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace on the overall growth and prosperity of society. During my research I found that most of the benefits that social networking offers are steps toward building a “global network” for shared expertise and diverse, insightful conversations. Even though there is a lot of bad press concerning the negative aspects of social networking (privacy concerns, online distractions, oversharing of personal information, the value of ‘friends’, and emphasizing revenues rather the exchange of information), the cases of Twitter being actively involved in the 2009 Iranian elections, gathering support for victims of the earthquake in Haiti, and provide an access point for all types of information in the face censorship all outweighs the miscalculations of certain users. I feel that using social networking sites are keys to having more efficient information exchange and will really bring global support for issues that large implications. However a person might use Facebook or Twitter now will contribute to the overall field of “New Media” because their opinions are there for others to add to or disagree with. It is important for people to examine their online habits in relationship with what they contribute on social networking sites and understand which part of their digital life will improve their real-life counterpart.
Some interesting facts I found during my research are:
According to a survey conducted in 2006, “every second a user online in the US is visiting one of the top 15 social networking sites”
The US State Department actually asked Twitter to delay its scheduled maintenance to allow for Iranian voters to provide information to the world.
‘Unfriend’ became the word of the year according the New Oxford American Dictionary (even though I hear defriending more)
Most of my research came from reviewing the links provided in the Spring 2010 Dynamic Course Outline and I googled certain topics in my paper when I needed more outside information. I also skimmed some of the books on reserve at the college library and was lucky enough to find an online version of one of the textbook on Google Books. Searching for key phrases in Google Scholar also provided useful information.
Overall, it was very interesting research that took some time to put on paper and it really introduced many relevant facts on current issues involving social media and people having grand lives from a keyboard and computer screen.
Morgan Long's Blog 
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