Social Networking

   Social networking can be used to help promote businesses and special interest groups spread information. Carr's article shows how Obama's presidential campaign used social networking sites to promote and gain support. The campaign was able to have a wide reach with little marketing costs. The use of social networking "helped raise a record-breaking $600 million", this is an amount that would have been much harder to reach without the use of social networking. Social networking can also help to create a community for people, Facebook is an example of this. Facebook allows friends to share life updates and what they are up to with people they may not be able to see on a regular basis. The dark side of social networking is that it also allows people to create communities that may not be positive. The anonymity the social networking allows gives people the ability to post their negative opinions on others without repercussions. Young's article shows how classmates use the anonymity of the internet to attack their fellow classmates. Anonymity can be viewed as positive in order for users to protect their privacy but it's abused when people simply use it to drag down other people or spread false information. In the future social networking may be used as our primary source of information. It may also be used by several organizations to gather information. Social networking may evolve into platforms that allow us to connect with more than just family and friends,  but also our employers, doctors, and government officials.

Carr, David. “How Obama Tapped Into Social Networks' Power.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 10 Nov. 2008, https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/business/media/10carr.html.

Young, Jeffrey R. “They're Back, and They're Bad: Campus-Gossip Web Sites.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 31 Aug. 2019, https://www.chronicle.com/article/theyre-backtheyre-bad-/48220.