Online social and business networking communities

ASSIGNMENT ABOUT: ONLINE SOCIAL AND BUSINESS NETWORKING COMMUNITIES REPORT BY: Ina O’Murchu, John G. Breslin, Stefan Decker. ASSIGNMENT SUBMITTED BY: SUBMITTED TO: SUBMISSION DATE: May 19, 2011. SUMMARY OF READING The paper “ Online Social and Business Networking Communities” revolves around networking sites over the internet that have, in the present times, become part of every household worldwide. The inception of internet has widened various horizons for man. Various networks have sprung over the internet that allow user to connect to each other for leisure and fun or for commercial purposes. Depending upon the type of connectivity a site offers it is categorized as a social networking or a business networking site. Author quotes that these networking sites can be categorized by various means that include their mode of connectivity, purpose, and their remuneration, if any applicable. Studies reveal that these sites are not only advantageous but have certain cons associated to them as well that include the privacy, addiction and cyberbullying issues. COMMUNICATION SITUATION The situation that has been chosen to be examined here is that of a group of high school going students who are enrolled in the eighth grade. The students are members of certain social networking sites and communicate to other users via it. They communicate just about anything and everything as the sites they were logged in were used for communicating just for fun and leisure. The wider context of the communications is the overall effect these social networking based connections had over these individuals. ANALYSIS OF COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUES In the light of the author’s point of view it was observed that initially the students became members of the online social networking community just for leisure. The absence of any elderly supervision and the ability of the users to aimlessly surf through all parts of the social networking sites owing to their young and inexperienced age led to a number of problems just after the lapse of very little amount of time. Detailed analysis reveals that the teenagers created their personal profiles on the social networking sites by including all their actual personal details in them. Commenting upon the social statuses of users in their friends’ circle the user often forgot all their personal ethical boundaries and often tagged and commented upon others’ profiles in order to mock them. Once a mischievous comment was passed on a user’s profile it often became the word of mouth both in the physical world and online. Majority of users in the friends circle would start mocking the poor particular user in the very same manner. This would often lead to quite an embarrassing situation for the poor user who himself would not have anything to do with this issue majority of times. Moreover, another problem that was faced by the teenage social networking users was that they were met by fraudulent people who did not post their true profiles online but made false user identities instead. These fraudulent people at first made friends with these young kids and later on exploited the youngsters by misusing their personal information. Since the fraudulents were nasty people they even resorted to cyberbullying with the youngsters. In line with the communications witnessed above it is critically assessed that it is better to become members of business networking sites that are not addictive. Their means of connection are usually invitations from existing users. Teenagers can become part of a study group that is initiated by any of their team leaders. This way they can establish connections with their friends as well and can also make base of their personality by communicating with like statured youngsters who belong to their own age group. COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGY The above analysis and author studies assist in the assessment that activity of teenagers over the social networking websites should not be left unsupervised. Schools should give introductory lessons to kids that should outline what should the activities of a child be over the internet and especially on the social networking sites. Since the sites that offer connections for fun loving and dating purposes only might indulge the youngsters into lame-less activities. An increase in such an activity might lead to stern personality shifts among youngsters that may be persistent and may not wear off even after years.