Social networking: The good, the fast and the addictive
IMAGINE sharing pictures of a current cricket match in Guyana with family and friends worldwide in minutes; imagine chatting with friends from India, China and Africa all at the same time. Imagine no more; it’s real! It’s called social media and networking! This new phenomenon has changed the way that people share information. In the past, when wanting to share something with a large audience, one had to enlist the help of a newspaper, television or radio station; or access an email list server in order to reach those people. Now, with the emergence of social media, the same information can be shared in a matter of seconds.
Social networking is defined as the act of exchanging information, personal or public, through various forms of technology, such as the Internet, cell-phones, and other services. Almost all social media has emerged on the Internet, with many developing applications, or “apps”, for use on cell-phones, Ipads, and computers.
Platforms such as Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, blogs, message boards, Wikipedia and countless others are catching on like wildfire.
Here’s a sample to help you get your head around today’s most popular social networking tools:

Blogs are sites that provide information and opinion about events, ideas, or anything else they want to discuss. Blogs can include links to other related sites, photos, videos and sound as well as text. The number of bloggers is growing exponentially.

Twitter is a micro-blogging site. Its members post text messages, called “tweets”, of 140 characters or less. Other Twitter users can “follow” your posts if you want them to. Twitter hit a milestone of more than 500 million users last month.

Facebook is a social networking site where you can set up a profile, join different communities, etc. More than 800 million people currently use Facebook—and the fastest growing demographic is people over the age of 35. There are some 7,000,000+ users in the Caribbean, with 150,000+ coming from Guyana.

LinkedIn is a social networking site with about 40 million members. While it shares a lot of the same features and capabilities you’ll find on Facebook, LinkedIn focuses specifically on helping people build career and business communities.

Wikipedia is a free encyclopaedia that anyone can edit. Articles provide links to related information.

YouTube is a site to share and watch videos. Anyone can record a video and then upload and share it via the YouTube site. Everyone can watch the videos on YouTube.

Some advantages of social networking
Low cost: Definitely, it’s cheaper to use online social networking for both personal and business use, because most of it is usually free. While personal use is rather simple for anyone, the business functions are underestimated by many. In a social networking site, you can scout out potential customers and target markets with just a few clicks and keystrokes, adding a boost to your usual advertisements and promotional strategies. It lets you learn about their likes and dislikes, which is tremendous. If you want to fine-tune your business, then this is the way to go, whether on a budget or not.

Connections: You are friends with people who have other friends, and so on. There is potential in such a common situation. By using a social networking site, you can be friends with all.

Easy to stay in touch:A few years ago, it was possible to keep in touch with family, friends and colleagues only by phone, text messages, or email. Nowadays, you can update your profile and everyone knows what you are doing.Simple and quick!

What about the disadvantages, though?
Many say social networking has become more addictive than the use of alcohol and drugs among our young adults.What do you think?

Time consuming: If this is not your kind of thing, then it would just be a waste of time for you. The key to social networking is that it is supposed to be fun.

Scams and harassment: There is a potential for failure of security in both personal and business context. While many sites apply certain measures to keep any of these cases of harassment, cyber-stalking, online scams, and identity theft to an absolute minimum, you still may never know.
Social media can have a negative influence on worker productivity. Employees may waste valuable time using social media channels. They can also use social media to attack the company’s reputation!
When social media is used excessively or in the wrong way, it could have serious detrimental outcomes on both mental and physical health of individuals
Many countries feel that some sites are not fit for their people, and hence do not allow this “social networking thing” to make them addicted. Talk about China emerging as the world’s biggest power has banned Facebook and many other social networking sites.

Whether we like it or not, we live in the 24/7 digital world. “It affects virtually every aspect of our lives.”To sum it up, I would say, take advantage of all that online social networking has to offer, but be careful while using it, or else people can be using you!

Question of the Week: Why is the ‘@’ sign use for emails?
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