User:WritforCyb

Social Networking Sites (SNS) is the name used to describe any site that allows its users to create profiles and share this profile with others. These sites include but are not limited to Facebook, Twitter, Flixter, Google+, and MySpace. These sites can be used to socialize with friends, express their minds, review new movies, and find a date and much more. These sites were born along with technology and reflect the current trends in society.

Facebook and Twitter
Political events such as debates have been broadcasted through Facebook and Twitter. In January 2008, Facebook teamed up with ABC News to allow Facebook users to give live comments on the political debate. Twitter has also become a platform for political news. Political candidates now keep current twitter accounts where they update the voters and communicate with their followers. Consider 140 characters or less to get a point across, Twitter gives millions of people the option to do this. Twitter has been used to organize protests, known as “Twitter Revolutions.” Protests such as the 2011 Egyptian revolution and the 2009 – 2010 Iran Elections were started, followed and carried out through Twitter.

McDonaldization
Our society is experiencing something that many sociologists explain as McDonaldization. McDonaldization according to Marx Weber is the process by which the principles of the fast-food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as well as the rest of the world. In simple words, the running methods of McDonald’s are being adapted by other companies and industries around the world are making everything fast, efficient and convenient. Industries such as cell phone companies, Wal-Mart’s and banks are all adapting this new system which reduces people and increases computers and new up-to-date technology (Keel). Now you can check your balance with a text. If you want to play you can go online and play with people you will probably never even speak to in your life time. Instead of talking about your feelings or having conversations with your friends we simply update our Facebook status and call it a day. When we want company we log on to the chat room and chat away.

Health
This new method of technology is rapidly changing the way we lead our lives. It is also taking time away from other activities in our lives. We spend less time going out without friends and more times chatting online. We are at health risks because we are sitting in front of a computer screen for more hours leaving less time for outdoor activities. (Emotions and Social…)

According to Duke Ophthalmologist Jill Koury, MD spending too many hours in front of the computer can cause more than obesity issues. Eye sight problems have now become prominent due to hours of sitting in front of the computer screen.

Psychology
McDonaldization is helping us lose our ability to communicate with another human being face-to-face, we find ourselves in situations that make us feel awkward because we have lost the inclination to be social in the real world. Everything is so automatic that studies have shown that we forget to be polite when we are actually confronted with human interaction.

Kenneth Dixon suggests that the focus of today’s young people to gravitate towards technology and communication via the web is leaving our children with emotional issues. Children need the feel and touch of actual humans in order to fully develop their social emotional skills. Children are feeling alone in the World Wide Web, their online friends are not translating to their real life and these children find themselves with no one to play with. If children are not interacting with others they are not developi9ng their social skills, the speaking skills or their problem solving skills because they have no one to talk to.

Resources
Dixon, Kenneth M. “Researchers link use of internet to social isolation.” Stanford News Service. 23 Feb. 2005, Stanford Institute for the Quantitative Study of Society. 20 Oct. 2011

“Emoticons and social interaction on the Internet:the importance of social context.” Computers in Human Behavior 20 Oct. 2011

Keel, Robert. “The McDonaldization of Society.” 10 July 2007. 19 Oct. 2011 http://www.umsl.edu/~keelr/010/mcdonsoc/html “Protecting Children and teens from Cyber-harm” Harvard Mental Health Letter (2008): 4-5.

Tyagi, Dr. Himanshu. “Mental Risk` of Facebook Teens.” BBC World News. 3 July 2008. 20 Oct. 2011 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7487723.stm.

Additional Websites
http://www.dukehealth.org/health_library/health_articles/myth_or_fact_spending_many_hours_in_front_of_a_computer_can_damage_your_eyes

http://newslite.tv/2010/11/01/facebook-and-twitter-are-killi.html

http://cmch.typepad.com/mediatrician/2009/08/how-do-facebook-and-twitter-affect-social-skills.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1153583/Social-websites-harm-childrens-brains-Chilling-warning-parents-neuroscientist.html

http://gigaom.com/collaboration/how-social-media-is-affecting-the-way-we-speak-and-write/