Blog Social Networking

When you take a seat on the train and look around you, almost everybody is on their phone and using a form of social networking to communicate with others. Whether it is for talking and texting to families or forwarding emails to your co-workers and managers, these are all a form of social networking around you in today's modern 21st century. More specifically, social networking has benefited the corporate industries where higher up executives and recruiters are able to reach out to potential employers much more efficiently and effectively. In the article, “Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting,” Frank Langfitt touches on how Maureen Crawford-Hentz, a recruiter from Osram Sylvania, finds "Social networking technology is absolutely the best thing to happen to recruiting -- ever" (Langfitt, 3). Maureen uses "Linkedin" as one of her primary methods for recruiting and because of the elaborate and efficient ease of the way Linkedin displays each users information, Maureen is able to quickly perform her scouting routines on future employers. The social networking in this form of communicating is extremely beneficial to the corporate world because the communication platform such as "Linkedin" is able to have people from student interns, all the way to "executives from all of the Fortune 500 companies" (Langfitt, 4). This demonstrates the vast and broadness of Linkedin on how everyone has the opportunity to communicate with one another, especially on a professional standpoint. 

Now social networking is not only beneficial to the corporate and business industries, but it is also a great positive spark for general users and society as a whole. Take a high school teenager for example. They would post pictures and update their status as to how they are feeling at the moment or what they are doing to inform their friends. That is one way to use their social networking, but the police force in New Delhi, India is capable of making more impressive uses for it. In New Delhi, their police force has created a page on Facebook where citizens are able to post pictures and videos on it to demonstrate traffic violations and dangerous actions. Heather Timmon, an editor from New York Times mentions in his article on how "Using the pictures, the Delhi Traffic Police have issued 665 tickets, using the license plate numbers shown in the photos to track vehicle owners" (Timmon, 5). Understanding how simple and effective this Facebook page is, the Traffic Police is able to send a message to dangerous and reckless drivers that their actions are always monitored and that it is best to follow the rules. These social networking platforms are creating a safer environment that can benefit society as a whole.

Social networking as mentioned has a plethora amount of beneficial uses for it; however, everything great has its dark sides. Facebook is a prime example of this as it allows users to really share their personal life and allow users to demonstrate their fun sides as well. Despite all of this, companies are now not the only background checking an employer, but also everything connecting to this person such as their social networking. There are times where users post inappropriate things; however, this is during off hours and social networking platforms are allowing companies to see this despite being "private". Personally, I see social networking as both a positive and a negative resource. The positives about it is that it allows users to really express their personal feeling and also able to connect themselves to other professionals out in the corporate world. The negatives are that it really makes you think twice before you really post something online that could potentially damage your personal career. I don't see this as a huge problem for me personally; however, I have seen people actually get fired for things that are posted on their social networking platforms. I believe that this could evolve in the future by potentially strengthening the power of when a user sets their information as "private". There are a lot of users who complain that people outside of their friends list is still able to see their posts and photos and I truly hope that this will be fixed.

Sources:

1. Langfitt, Frank. “Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting.” NPR, NPR, 22 Nov. 2006, www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6522523&sc=emaf.
2. Timmons, Heather. “Delhi Police Use Facebook to Track Scofflaw Drivers.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 1 Aug. 2010, www.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/technology/02traffic.html?ref=business.