Social Networking: Pro or Con?

Throughout the past decade the use of social networking has rapidly increased. What started out as one trend multiplied into countless media sites absorbing our population’s attention. After Friends Reunited was created in 1999, people became accustomed to using their keyboard rather than their mouth, and seeing a screen rather than a face (University of North Carolina). It has been declared a controversial issue on whether or not the rising usage benefits, or harms society. Some argue that the sites have overstepped the boundaries of communication and privacy while others argue the benefits of quick and endless conversing have opened a new dawning to technology. Though both sides do have valid evidence, the pros have proved to outweigh the cons. Social media has made job applicants easier to interview, increased voting percentages, and even allowed teachers a door to assist their students outside of the classroom (Procon.org) Social networking as defined by Oxford Dictionaries is “a dedicated website or other application that enables users to communicate with each other by posting information, comments, messages, images, etc..” (Oxford Dictionaries). The first social network to receive prominence was created in 1999 by Great Britain. Its intent was to help old school friends reconnect. In 2002, Friendster was opened to the United States public and quickly gained popularity; there were 3 million users by the third month. The following year, a similar site was created, MySpace. By 2004, MySpace was the country’s most popular networking site. In 2008 though, Facebook surpassed MySpace with its total of monthly visitors and still remains todays most popular site with 1.11 billion users (University of North Carolina). Many teenagers and young adults carry smart phones allowing access to social networking by no more than a slide of the finger and the press