Blog Social Networking

There are many ways social networking technologies are used in society today. One new way that its been used is "Professional recruiters have started hunting for job candidates using social networking technology — like the kind found on the popular sites MySpace and Facebook" (Social). Social networking can help people who are job hunting, find a job, and for company recruiters to hire more employees for their company. Social networking technologies could help company recruiters find specific targeted potential hires. For example, if a company is looking for someone with this specific skill or degree in lets just say, NYC. They can search for that through Facebook, and more specifically, LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a social networking technology where people create their own profile of their skills and resume. With this, recruiters can search through LinkedIn to find exactly what potential hires they would want for their company. Social networking technologies allow many people to create a profile of themselves online, where their information is usually readily available. This can help companies find potential hires, or even search for data on targeted consumers regarding products or services they are selling or advertising.

Although this technology allows for potential growth over the internet, there is a "dark side" to social networking technologies. This calls for a new issue that can be brought up by putting information on the internet, which can be quite dangerous. "The majority of young adult users of Facebook are engaged with managing their privacy settings on the site at least to some extent" (Who). Many young adults on Facebook put a lot of their information online on their Facebook profiles. Some may put very personal information too. With the fact that many company recruiters are searching for people on Facebook for potential hires, they do sometimes do background checks on them too. This is where social networking technologies can have consequences. People may put "NSFW" (Not safe for work) information or pictures on their Facebook, which can potentially ruin their future careers, or even their current job/career. A lot of young people on Facebook post up sensitive information that can ruin themselves. When people put information on the internet, it forever stays on the internet even if you try to delete information. This is the dark side of social networking technologies. Although it allows people to create virtual profiles of themselves online, it is easily accessible to the public. This is why Facebook has privacy settings; where people can hide their information and profiles to the public, etc. The social networking app, Instagram also does this too. Instagram allows users to private their profiles so that only the people they allow, can see their information and pictures. I believe that all social networking websites or apps should have these privacy settings. Information on the internet can be very sensitive since it is accessible to the public. Social networking technologies do allow for potential growth on how we can distribute our information whether its to apply for a job or apply for health insurance. I believe in the future that all information on people will be stored on the internet. There will always be cons that come with this, but more importantly, potential opportunities for companies and businesses.









Citations for the 2 assigned readings:

1. Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting by Frank Langfitt, NPR, March 16, 2008. available from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6522523&sc=emaf

2. "Who Cares About Facebook Privacy? Students Do" By Marc Parry, NY Times, July 29, 2010, Available at http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Who-Cares-About-Facebook/25877/?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en