The Importance Of Social Networking

Register to read the introduction… If a need arises to speak to someone at three in the morning social networking users only need to turn on their internet activated device to drop a note on someone’s page. An increasing number of students have begun carrying phones and other technologies with them where ever they go, including to bed. Ben Locke, assistant director of Penn State’s counseling center, has noticed the increase in technology carrying and remarks, “technology has gone from sitting on a shelf to being on a person all day long,” (471). Carrying a cell phone daily eliminates the dead zones a person’s social life may have. Many find this constant connection a comforting security blanket; friends exist only a speed dial away and only sent text messages become required to stay in touch with family. The elimination of downtime may falsely give a user the perception of …show more content…
Supporters believe online sites do not inhibit confidence because of their social nature. Users post on walls, answer stranger’s questions, and share knowledge with one another. The confidence simply differs because users become shielded from their true identity by a created persona. The user-created persona socializes with other personas creating a fictional and always accessible world. Lack of downtime leaves users with an illusion of interaction with other people. Not physical togetherness. Users interact with others from behind a shield, never really socializing face-to-face. The technological shield inhibits proxemics and makes it impossible for those communicating to see the involuntary body movements of their counterpart, leaving a dislocated and artificial feeling. But, increases in online networking will lead to social skill atrophy. By increasing online networking, people will become left experiencing life