Week 3 - Social Networking

Nowadays, Networking isn't just going out for drinks or coffee with people and hope that they would give you business. That still works for maybe the contractors who mostly speak hokkien and uses that phone just to call and text. (Maybe im being stereotypical but hey, you get what I mean) .

Because of the rise of the Internet, many people and businesses have made used of that platform to expand their network. This is called social networking. It makes the world more open and connected.

Social Media is probably one of the easiest topic to blog about since my generation uses it e.v.e.r.y.d.a.y. It can be the equivalent of insulin to a diabetic person. Social Media allows us to express ourselves, allows anonymity, and because it is so diverse, the possibilities are endless. Heres a picture that explains the different type of social media in a nut shell!

Social Media has become massively popular in recent years and for good reasons. There are a lot of benefits from using social media. While not everyone will agree that it is a good thing and that there certainly are some cons to it, on the whole, it would be fair to say that the benefits outweigh the negatives. This is a big part of why social media has become so popular. 

The main pro of social media is that it allows you to interact with far more people than you would otherwise be able to. This means that you can be exposed to a far wider array of opinions than you normally would be able to. Furthermore, you will be able to share your opinions with so much more people.



These interactions have certainly made the world smaller since the Internet has allowed people to connect with one another so much easier. That being said, there are people like me for example, who only interact with the people I know in real life over the Internet. This could be due to my upbringing with my parents constantly drilling to me that the Internet is a scary place and that I should not talk to strangers. 

Another great benefit of the social media is that it makes it so much easier to organize events. In the past, getting the information out to the people was such a chore. Nowadays, with things like Facebook Events, all one has to do is to type the details of the event into the box and invite all their friends to the event and voila! The word is out and all you have to do is to wait for people to RSVP to the event. 

However, this is not all perfect. One of the setbacks about this is, how to prevent the people that you dont like from turning up to your event? How do you stop them from seeing the event on fb? Despite this setback, it is definitely one of the easiest and fastest way to get the word of an event out.  

A lot of people are starting to use social networking for business reasons and this is proving to be one of the most valuable uses of the internet. Social networking is just another means to network and its open news that networking is critical for things like finding a job. This is why we are starting to see a rise of sites that specifically for networking professional reasons. The advantage here would be that once again, you would be able to network with a lot more people that you would normally do in person. 

Perhaps the best reason for social networking is that it is fun. People can and do spend hours a day on social networking sites interacting with their friends. It is a good way to stay in touch and to find out what is going on in their lives. In addition, there are all kinds of games and similar things that you can do on these sites. There isn't really a useful purpose for using social media, but you use it simply because you enjoy using it. Ultimately, this is why most people use it.

This is probably the scariest thing one can say to a gen-y kid. haha!


Till next week.