Friday, March 20, 2015

“Social Networks: Virtual Friend or Real Enemy”


            Social network is a network of friends, colleagues, and other personal contacts (Dictionary.com, 2012). Social networking began in 1978 with the Bulletin Board System or BBS which was hosted on personal computers. After that the first version of instant messaging came about in 1988 with Internet Relay Chat (IRC), which allow user to use the link and file sharing, and generally keeping in touch with one another (Webmasterview.com, 2003 - 2012). Now there are many type of social networks that exist including Google plus, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and many others.
 Nowadays, with the advancement of technology social network has become the most popular platform for people all around the world to get access to it. By the same token, there are some people who think that social network provide them a lot of benefit while other people think that social network is quite harmful to them and also the whole society. Thereupon, this essay will discuss about the advantages of social network which writer consider as a virtual friend for three main reasons.
            First and foremost, social network has the first main reason, which people usually know that social network allows us to create new relationship and reconnect with friend and family. Hence, it make our life much more convenient as it is a site that help us get to know new people, and at the same time can find a good person who can share the same interest and tutor us around. For instance, people have trouble in English language so they can go through Facebook and find someone to help them, it is quite helpful and you know it. Not only in educations but there are many different kinds of help that we want. Moreover, it easier for those who want to keep in touch with their old friend or family, which may not require any phone number to contact unless you can access to the internet. Again, it is very crucial since it can keep people connect to each other even in a far distance or near location for anytime and anywhere. It is easy for people to set up an appointment, date, invite to any ceremony or recommend someone on doing something. For instance, if person A has not seen people B for a long time, they just found each other on Facebook or twitter so then they can chat to each other just like a real time. More than that, they can make date to go out with other friend to celebrate the first meet since the last time they met. Therefore, social network is a virtual friend because of the main reason above that people usually concern about.
            Secondly, social network has the second main reason of its benefit, which is known that people use it to discuss for educational topics. Actually, it is true as students can improve their knowledge and learn to express themselves more clearly by receiving aid from teacher, professor or other people. Additionally, social network also help people a lot in term of teamwork, as a matter of fact that people can chat in a group or discuss in a group that they created, yet they can also share document or file to each other easily. For example, Facebook play an important for university especially as a second teacher since student and instructor usually come up together to ask and answer the question and we usually see the instructor get involved with that and help the student out. Before a presentation for a group project, a team usually uses Facebook with the other member to discuss more to make their group work much better. Since social network has its advantage that enables user use to discuss for education topic therefore it is not the real enemy.
            Thirdly, social network has the third main reason which known as free of charge to use. Absolutely, people need communication and no man is an island meaning no one can live alone. So they will need something to communicate or interact with each other. For business, they will surely need it because it is the cost effective to reach consumer and make their business run better. If you are an entrepreneur, social network like Facebook will be the best choice for you. You can advertise for free about your products or services and people will get to know it faster than ever. Moreover, it is extremely convenient meaning that just easy and fast remarkably built in user-friendly interface. Compare to magazine or newspaper it is far much better. For example, small and big businesses that exist in Cambodia like legend cinema, ione, or many others, they usually use social network for their advertisement because it is cheaper or can be free but the way to attract people is not so different from TV, it can attract more people too. Likewise, we can have a video call that we can see each other by using Skype and we can communicate around the world not only in local country. For example, people have a relative who live abroad, thus if they want to communicate they don’t need to send a letter which take a lot of time and effort but instead, they can just use Skype for call or video call and it is free of charge to use as well. Since the social network has its benefit that allows people to use it for free thus it is not the real enemy.
            In conclusion, we can see that social network has its own benefit. The benefits include creating new relationship and reconnect with friend and family, discuss for education topic, and free of charge.  I would consider social network as a virtual friend even if it has some disadvantages because of the above benefits. Moreover, I hope social network will develop even further and make our life any ease within every aspect.

 References
Anonymous. (2012). Professional Communications: Kwantlen class blog. Advantage and
            Disadvantage of Social Networking. Retrieved May 25, 2012 from
Anonymous. (2011). COMPUTERS & INTERNET TECHNOLOGY. An Overview of the Pros           and Cons of Social Networking. Retrieved May 25, 2012 from
Anonymous. (2012). Dictionary.com. social network. Retrieved May 25, 2012 from
Syam Kumar, R. (2009-2012). Webmasterview. The History of Social Networking. Retrieved May 25, 2012 from
Wilshire Blvd. (2012). ProCon.org. Social Networking. Retrieved May 25, 2012 from
            http://socialnetworking.procon.org/

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