Social Networking.

Is social networking becoming a problem? There are numerous social networking sites available on the internet today and with the offer of signing up for free, it appears that more and more people appear to be unable to refuse. Facebook, Myspace and Bebo are probably the biggest players on the internet. I am a member of both Myspace and Facebook, though the latter sees more use from me nowadays. However I don’t consider myself to be obsessed with it. I update my status very little, although some people will update their statuses numerous times throughout the day and document every little thing that they are doing. When did it become so appealing to tell the world every detail of your existence?

Perhaps you may think it is an exaggeration to say the world, but believe me I am not. Facebook recently changed its settings, in which a person could be googled by name and they would show up as a result, maybe it could be argued that this is a person’s own fault for signing up to the site in the first place. But then again isn’t Facebook’s slogan: ‘connect and share with the people in your life’, I’m pretty sure people don’t know the random people that may Google them. This is when it not only becomes BAD but dangerous too.

Recently a survey was conducted and the results show that many people don’t consider the dangers of using these sites. According to the most recent ‘State of the Net survey’, ‘52% of "adult users" still post what it describes as risky personal information on social networks.’ The survey also revealed that ‘people don't bother hiding their personal data by using the social network's privacy controls’. Which as previously mentioned can be of danger to the user: ‘A projected 1.7 million online households had experienced online identity theft in the past year.’ It is believed that a lot of this is due to fraudsters using information from networking sites and simple details such as name and date of birth can have devastating effects on people’s lives.
However I do feel that some people bring it on themselves, the survey revealed that 8% of users ‘had posted their own street address’, who in their right mind would do that?

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-20004136-501465.html

So there you have it, it appears that social networking may be more trouble than it is worth, but I do believe that in an age where technology is depended upon for so much, people are being encouraged to go out there and join sites to communicate with people, let’s face it it’s much easier and cheaper than using the phone. Perhaps more should be done to increase security on the internet, because the reality is that more and more fraudsters are out to get people and unless we revert back to the age with no computers, people should be more educated on such matters.