From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A
social networking service or
SNS (sometimes called a
social networking site) is an online platform which people use to build social networks or
social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interests, activities, backgrounds or real-life connections.
Social networking services vary in format and the number of
features. They can incorporate a range of new information and
communication tools, operating on desktops and on laptops, on mobile devices such as tablet computers and smartphones. This may feature digital photo/video/sharing and diary entries online (blogging). Online community
services are sometimes considered social-network services by developers
and users, though in a broader sense, a social-network service usually
provides an individual-centered service whereas online community
services are groups centered. Generally defined as "websites that
facilitate the building of a network of contacts in order to exchange
various types of content online," social networking sites provide a
space for interaction to continue beyond in-person interactions. These
computer mediated interactions link members of various networks and may
help to create, sustain and develop new social and professional
relationships.
Social networking sites allow users to share ideas, digital
photos and videos, posts, and to inform others about online or
real-world activities and events with people within their social
network. While in-person social networking – such as gathering in a
village market to talk about events – has existed since the earliest
development of towns, the web enables people to connect with others who live in different locations across the globe (dependent on access to an internet connection to do so). Depending on the social media
platform, members may be able to contact any other member. In other
cases, members can contact anyone they have a connection to, and
subsequently anyone that contact has a connection to, and so on. The
success of social networking services can be seen in their dominance in
society today, with Facebook having a massive 2.13 billion active
monthly users and an average of 1.4 billion daily active users in 2017. LinkedIn, a career-oriented social-networking service, generally requires that a member personally know another member in real life before they contact them online. Some services require members to have a preexisting connection to contact other members. With COVID-19, Zoom,
a videoconferencing platform, has taken an integral place to connect
people located around the world and facilitate many online environments
such as school, university, work and government meetings.
The main types of social networking services contain category places
(such as age or occupation or religion), means to connect with friends
(usually with self-description pages), and a recommendation system
linked to trust. One can categorize social-network services into four
types:
- socialization social network services used primarily for socializing with existing friends (e.g., Facebook, Instagram)
- online social networks are decentralized and distributed computer
networks where users communicate with each other through internet
services.
- networking social network services used primarily for non-social interpersonal communication (e.g., LinkedIn, a career- and employment-oriented site)
- social navigation social network services used primarily for helping users to find specific information or resources (e.g., Goodreads for books, Reddit)
There have been attempts to standardize these services to avoid the need to duplicate entries of friends and interests (see the FOAF standard). A study reveals that India recorded world's largest growth in terms of social media users in 2013. A 2013 survey found that 73% of U.S. adults use social-networking sites.
Definition
There is a variety of social networking services available online. However, most incorporate common features:
- social networking services are, Internet-based applications
- user-generated content (UGC) is the lifeblood of social networking services.
- users create service-specific profiles for the site or app that are designed and maintained by the SNS organization
- social networking services facilitate the development of online
social networks by connecting a user's profile with those of other
individuals or groups.
A challenge of definition
The
variety and evolving range of stand-alone and built-in social
networking services in the online space introduces a challenge of
definition.
Furthermore, the idea that these services are defined by their ability
to bring people together provides too broad a definition. Such a broad
definition would suggest that the telegraph and telephone were social networking services – the Internet technologies scholars are intending to describe. The terminology is also unclear, with some referring to social networking services as social media.
Attempting definition
An attempt in 2015
at providing a clear definition reviewed the prominent literature in
the area and identified four commonalities unique to current social
networking services:
- social networking services are interactive Web 2.0 Internet-based applications,
- user-generated content (UGC), such as user-submitted digital photos, text posts, "tagging", online comments, and diary-style "web logs" (blogs), is the lifeblood of the SNS organism,
- users create service-specific profiles for the site or app that are designed and maintained by the SNS organization, and
- social networking services facilitate the development of social networks online by connecting a user's profile with those of other individuals or groups.
Offline and online social networking services
Differences between offline and online social networking services
Characteristic |
Offline social network |
Online social network
|
Degree centrality |
While the number of cognitively manageable ties is limited to about 150, most people report having 14–56 ties at average |
Huge number of ties technologically possible, but average number is limited, e.g., Facebook: 395
|
Symmetry |
Usually symmetric (reciprocal behavior) |
Symmetric (e.g., Instagram, LinkedIn, XING) and asymmetric (e.g., Twitter)
|
Affect |
Positive (92–97%) and negative (3–8%) tie relationships can be managed using high sophisticated coordination mechanisms such as argumentation and negotiation |
Except through blocking (e.g., Twitter) or hiding (e.g., Facebook) limited support to deal with negative tie relationships
|
Strength |
2–8 strong ties and 12–48 weak/latent ties on average |
9–37 strong ties and 68–131 weak/latent ties on average
|
Dynamic of change |
Low due to manual interaction | High because of technological support
|
|
History
The
potential for computer networking to facilitate newly improved forms of
computer-mediated social interaction was suggested early on. Efforts to support social networks via computer-mediated communication were made in many early online services, including Usenet, ARPANET, LISTSERV, and bulletin board services (BBS). Many prototypical features of social networking sites were also present in online services such as The Source, Delphi, America Online, Prodigy, CompuServe, ChatNet, and The WELL.
Early social networking on the World Wide Web began in the form of generalized online communities such as Theglobe.com (1995), Geocities (1994) and Tripod.com
(1995). Many of these early communities focused on bringing people
together to interact with each other through chat rooms and encouraged
users to share personal information and ideas via personal web pages by
providing easy-to-use publishing tools and free or inexpensive web
space. Some communities – such as Classmates.com – took a different approach by simply having people link to each other via email addresses. PlanetAll started in 1996.
In the late 1990s, user profiles became a central feature of social networking sites, allowing users to compile lists of "friends"
and search for other users with similar interests. New social
networking methods were developed by the end of the 1990s, and many
sites began to develop more advanced features for users to find and
manage friends. Open Diary,
a community for online diarists, invented both friends-only content and
the reader comment, two features of social networks important to user
interaction.
This newer generation of social networking sites began to flourish with the emergence of SixDegrees in 1997, followed by Open Diary in 1998, Mixi in 1999, Makeoutclub in 2000, Hub Culture in 2002, Friendster and Canada's first online social network Nexopia in 2003,
and soon became part of the Internet mainstream. However, thanks to the
nation's high Internet penetration rate, the first mass social
networking site was the South Korean service, Cyworld, launched as a blog-based site in 1999 and social networking features added in 2001. It also became one of the first companies to profit from the sale of virtual goods. Friendster was followed by MySpace and LinkedIn the same year, and eventually Bebo. Friendster became very popular in the Pacific Islands. Orkut
became the first popular social networking service in Brazil (although
most of its very first users were from the United States) and quickly
grew in popularity in India (Madhavan, 2007). Attesting to the rapid increase in social networking sites' popularity, by 2005, it was reported that Myspace was getting more page views than Google. Facebook, launched in 2004, became the largest social networking site in the world in early 2009. Facebook was first introduced as a Harvard social networking site, expanding to other universities and eventually, anyone. The term social media was introduced and soon became widespread.
Social impact
Web-based social networking services make it possible to connect
people who share interests and activities across political, economic,
and geographic borders. Through e-mail and instant messaging, online communities are created where a gift economy and reciprocal altruism are encouraged through cooperation. Information is suited to a gift economy, as information is a nonrival good and can be gifted at practically no cost. Scholars have noted that the term "social" cannot account for technological features of the social network platforms alone.
Hence, the level of network sociability should determine by the actual
performances of its users. According to the communication theory of uses
and gratifications, an increasing number of individuals are looking to
the Internet and social media to fulfill cognitive, affective, personal
integrative, social integrative, and tension free needs. With Internet
technology as a supplement to fulfill needs, it is in turn affecting
every day life, including relationships, school, church, entertainment,
and family.
Companies are using social media as a way to learn about potential
employees' personalities and behavior. In numerous situations, a
candidate who might otherwise have been hired has been rejected due to
offensive or otherwise unseemly photos or comments posted to social
networks or appearing on a newsfeed.
Facebook
and other social networking tools are increasingly the aims of
scholarly research. Scholars in many fields have begun to investigate
the impact of social networking sites, investigating how such sites may
play into issues of identity, politics, privacy,
social capital, youth culture, and education. Research has also suggested that individuals add offline friends on Facebook to maintain contact and often this blurs the lines between work and home lives. Users from around the world also utilise social networking sites as an alternative news source. While social networking sites have arguably changed how we access the news, users tend to have mixed opinions about the reliability of content accessed through these sites.
According to a study in 2015, 63% of the users of Facebook or
Twitter in the USA consider these networks to be their main source of
news, with entertainment news being the most seen. In the times of
breaking news, Twitter users are more likely to stay invested in the
story. In some cases when the news story is more political, users may be
more likely to voice their opinion on a linked Facebook story with a
comment or like, while Twitter users will just follow the site's feed
and retweet the article.
In online social networks, the veracity and reliability of news may be
diminished due to the absence of traditional media gatekeepers.
A 2015 study shows that 85% of people aged 18 to 34 use social
networking sites for their purchase decision making. While over 65% of
people aged 55 and over-rely on word of mouth. Several websites are beginning to tap into the power of the social networking model for philanthropy.
Such models provide a means for connecting otherwise fragmented
industries and small organizations without the resources to reach a
broader audience with interested users.
Social networks are providing a different way for individuals to
communicate digitally. These communities of hypertexts allow for the
sharing of information and ideas, an old concept placed in a digital
environment. In 2011, HCL Technologies conducted research that showed
that 50% of British employers had banned the use of social networking
sites/services during office hours.
Research has provided us with mixed results as to whether or not a
person's involvement in social networking can affect their feelings of loneliness.
Studies have indicated that how a person chooses to use social
networking can change their feelings of loneliness in either a negative
or positive way. Some companies with mobile workers have encouraged
their workers to use social networking to feel connected. Educators are
using social networking to stay connected with their students whereas
individuals use it to stay connected with their close relationships. Each social networking user is able to create a community that centers around a personal identity they choose to create online. In his book Digital Identities: Creating and Communicating the Online Self, Rob Cover argues that social networking's foundation in Web 2.0,
high-speed networking shifts online representation to one which is both
visual and relational to other people, complexifying the identity
process for younger people and creating new forms of anxiety.
In 2016, news reports stated that excessive usage of SNS sites may be
associated with an increase in the rates of depression, to almost triple
the rate for non-SNS users. Experts worldwide have said that 2030 people who use SNS more have higher levels of depression than those who use SNS less.
At least one study went as far as to conclude that the negative effects
of Facebook usage are equal to or greater than the positive effects of
face-to-face interactions.
According to a recent article from Computers in Human Behavior,
Facebook has also been shown to lead to issues of social comparison.
Users are able to select which photos and status updates to post,
allowing them to portray their lives in acclamatory manners. These updates can lead to other users feeling like their lives are inferior by comparison.
Users may feel especially inclined to compare themselves to other users
with whom they share similar characteristics or lifestyles, leading to a
fairer comparison.
Motives for these comparisons can be associated with the goals of
improving oneself by looking at profiles of people who one feels are
superior, especially when their lifestyle is similar and possible.
One can also self-compare to make oneself feel superior to others by
looking at the profiles of users who one believes to be worse off.
However, a study by the Harvard Business Review shows that these goals
often lead to negative consequences, as use of Facebook has been linked
with lower levels of well-being; mental health has been shown to
decrease due to the use of Facebook. Computers in Human Behavior
emphasizes that these feelings of poor mental health have been
suggested to cause people to take time off from their Facebook accounts;
this action is called "Facebook Fatigue" and has been common in recent
years.
Usage of social networking has contributed to a new form of
abusive communication, and academic research has highlighted a number of
social-technological explanations for this behaviour. These including
the anonymity afforded by interpersonal communications, factors that include boredom or attention seeking, or the result of more polarised online debate. The impact in this abuse has found impacts through the prevalence of online cyberbullying, and online trolling.
There has also been a marked increase in political violence and abuse
through social media platforms. For instance, one study by Ward and
McLoughlin found that 2.57% of all messages sent to UK MPs on Twitter were found to contain abusive messages.
Features
Typical features
According
to boyd and Ellison's (2007) article, "Why Youth (Heart) Social Network
Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life", social
networking sites share a variety of technical features that allow
individuals to: construct a public/semi-public profile, articulate a
list of other users that they share a connection with, and view their
list of connections within the system. The most basic of these are
visible profiles with a list of "friends" who are also users of the
site.
In an article entitled "Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and
Scholarship," boyd and Ellison adopt Sunden's (2003) description of
profiles as unique pages where one can "type oneself into being".
A profile is generated from answers to questions, such as age,
location, interests, etc. Some sites allow users to upload pictures, add
multimedia content or modify the look and feel of the profile. Others,
e.g., Facebook, allow users to enhance their profile by adding modules
or "Applications".
Many sites allow users to post blog entries, search for others with
similar interests and compile and share lists of contacts. User profiles
often have a section dedicated to comments from friends and other
users. To protect user privacy, social networks typically have controls
that allow users to choose who can view their profile, contact them, add
them to their list of contacts, and so on.
Additional features
There is a trend towards more interoperability between social networks led by technologies such as OpenID and OpenSocial.
In most mobile communities, mobile phone users can now create their own
profiles, make friends, participate in chat rooms, create chat rooms,
hold private conversations, share photos and videos, and share blogs by
using their mobile phone. Some companies provide wireless services that
allow their customers to build their own mobile community and brand it;
one of the most popular wireless services for social networking in North America and Nepal
is Facebook Mobile.
Recently, twitter has also introduced fact check labels to combat
misinformation which was primarily spread due to the coronavirus but
also has had an impact on debunking false claims by Donald Trump in the
2020 election.
Social media platforms may allow users to change their user name (or "handle", distinct from the "display name"), which could change the URL to their profile. Users are advised to do so with caution, since it could break back links from others' posts and comments depending on implementation, and external back links.
Emerging trends
The things you share are things that make you look good, things which you are happy to tie into your identity.
While the popularity of social networking consistently rises,
new uses for the technology are frequently being observed. Today's
technologically savvy population requires convenient solutions to their
daily needs. At the forefront of emerging trends in social networking sites is the concept of "real-time web" and "location-based".
Real-time allows users to contribute contents, which is then broadcast
as it is being uploaded—the concept is analogous to live radio and
television broadcasts. Twitter
set the trend for "real-time" services, wherein users can broadcast to
the world what they are doing, or what is on their minds within a
140-character limit. Facebook
followed suit with their "Live Feed" where users' activities are
streamed as soon as it happens. While Twitter focuses on words, Clixtr,
another real-time service, focuses on group photo sharing wherein users
can update their photo streams with photos while at an event. Facebook,
however, remains the largest photo sharing site with over 250 billion
photos as of September 2013. In April 2012, the image-based social media network Pinterest had become the third largest social network in the United States.
Companies have begun to merge business technologies and solutions, such as cloud computing,
with social networking concepts. Instead of connecting individuals
based on social interest, companies are developing interactive
communities that connect individuals based on shared business needs or
experiences. Many provide specialized networking tools and applications that can be accessed via their websites, such as LinkedIn. Others companies, such as Monster.com,
have been steadily developing a more "socialized" feel to their career
center sites to harness some of the power of social networking sites.
These more business related sites have their own nomenclature for the
most part but the most common naming conventions are "Vocational
Networking Sites" or "Vocational Media Networks", with the former more
closely tied to individual networking relationships based on social
networking principles.
Foursquare gained popularity as it allowed for users to check into places that they are frequenting at that moment. Gowalla is another such service that functions in much the same way that Foursquare does, leveraging the GPS
in phones to create a location-based user experience. Clixtr, though in
the real-time space, is also a location-based social networking site,
since events created by users are automatically geotagged, and users can
view events occurring nearby through the Clixtr iPhone app. Recently, Yelp
announced its entrance into the location-based social networking space
through check-ins with their mobile app; whether or not this becomes
detrimental to Foursquare or Gowalla is yet to be seen, as it is still
considered a new space in the Internet technology industry.
One popular use for this new technology is social networking
between businesses. Companies have found that social networking sites
such as Facebook and Twitter are great ways to build their brand image.
According to Jody Nimetz, author of Marketing Jive, there are five major uses for businesses and social media: to create brand awareness, as an online reputation management tool, for recruiting, to learn about new technologies and competitors, and as a lead generation tool to intercept potential prospects.
These companies are able to drive traffic to their own online sites
while encouraging their consumers and clients to have discussions on how
to improve or change products or services. As of September 2013, 71% of
online adults use Facebook, 17% use Instagram, 21% use Pinterest, and
22% use LinkedIn.
Niche networks
In
2012, it was reported that in the past few years, the niche social
network has steadily grown in popularity, thanks to better levels of
user interaction and engagement. In 2012, a survey by Reuters and
research firm Ipsos
found that one in three users were getting bored with Facebook and in
2014 the GlobalWebIndex found that this figured had risen to almost 50%.
The niche social network offers a specialized space that's designed to
appeal to a very specific market with a clearly defined set of needs.
Where once the streams of social minutia on networks such as Facebook
and Twitter were the ultimate in online voyeurism, now users are looking
for connections, community and shared experiences. Social networks that
tap directly into specific activities, hobbies, tastes, and lifestyles
are seeing a consistent rise in popularity.
Science
One
other use that is being discussed is the use of social networks in the
science communities. Julia Porter Liebeskind et al. have published a
study on how new biotechnology firms are using social networking sites
to share exchanges in scientific knowledge.
They state in their study that by sharing information and knowledge
with one another, they are able to "increase both their learning and
their flexibility in ways that would not have been possible within a
self-contained hierarchical organization". Social networking is allowing
scientific groups to expand their knowledge base and share ideas, and
without these new means of communicating their theories might become
"isolated and irrelevant". Researchers use social networks frequently to
maintain and develop professional relationships.
They are interested in consolidating social ties and professional
contact, keeping in touch with friends and colleagues and seeing what
their own contacts are doing. This can be related to their need to keep
updated on the activities and events of their friends and colleagues in
order to establish collaborations on common fields of interest and
knowledge sharing.
Social networks are also used to communicate scientists research results
and as a public communication tool and to connect people who share the
same professional interests, their benefits can vary according to the
discipline.
The most interesting aspects of social networks for professional
purposes are their potentialities in terms of dissemination of
information and the ability to reach and multiple professional contacts
exponentially. Social networks like Academia.edu, LinkedIn, Facebook, and ResearchGate
give the possibility to join professional groups and pages, to share
papers and results, publicize events, to discuss issues and create
debates. Academia.edu is extensively used by researchers, where they follow a combination of social networking and scholarly norms. ResearchGate is also widely used by researchers, especially to disseminate and discuss their publications, where it seems to attract an audience that it wider than just other scientists. The usage of Research Gate and Academia in different academic communities has increasingly been studied in recent years.
Education
The
advent of social networking platforms may also be impacting the ways in
which learners engage with technology in general. For a number of
years, Prensky's (2001) dichotomy between Digital Natives
and Digital Immigrants has been considered a relatively accurate
representation of the ease with which people of a certain age range—in
particular those born before and after 1980—use technology. Prensky's
theory has been largely disproved, however, and not least on account of
the burgeoning popularity of social networking sites and other metaphors
such as White and Le Cornu's "Visitors" and "Residents" (2011) are
greater currency. The use of online social networks by school libraries
is also increasingly prevalent and they are being used to communicate
with potential library users, as well as extending the services provided
by individual school libraries. Social networks and their educational
uses are of interest to many researchers. According to Livingstone and
Brake (2010), "Social networking sites, like much else on the Internet, represent a moving target for researchers and policymakers."
Pew Research Center project, called Pew Internet, did a USA-wide survey
in 2009 and in 2010 February published that 47% of American adults use a
social networking website. Same survey found that 73% of online teenagers use SNS, which is an increase from 65% in 2008, 55% in 2006.
Recent studies have shown that social network services provide
opportunities within professional education, curriculum education, and
learning. However, there are constraints in this area. Researches,
especially in Africa, have disclosed that the use of social networks
among students has been known to affect their academic life negatively.
This is buttressed by the fact that their use constitutes distractions,
as well as that the students tend to invest a good deal of time in the
use of such technologies.
Albayrak and Yildirim (2015) examined the educational use of
social networking sites. They investigated students' involvement in
Facebook as a Course Management System (CMS) and the findings of their
study support that Facebook as a CMS has the potential to increase
student involvement in discussions and out-of-class communication among
instructors and students.
Professional use
Professional use of social networking services refers to the
employment of a network site to connect with other professionals within a
given field of interest. These type of social networking services are
referred to as "Career-oriented social networking markets (CSNM)".
LinkedIn
is one example and is a social networking website geared towards
companies and industry professionals looking to make new business
contacts or keep in touch with previous co-workers, affiliates, and
clients. LinkedIn provides not only a professional social use but also
encourages people to inject their personality into their profile –
making it more personal than a resume.
Similar websites to linkedin (also geared towards companies and industry
professionals looking for work opportunities) to connect include AngelList, XING, Goodwall, The Dots, Jobcase, Opportunity, Bark.com, ... Various freelance marketplace websites (which focus on freelance work) also exist. There are also a number of other employment websites focused on international volunteering, notably VolunteerMatch, Idealist.org and All for Good. National WWOOF networks finally allow for searching for homestays on organic farms.
Now other social network sites are also being used in this manner. Twitter has become [a] mainstay for professional development as well as promotion
and online SNSs support both the maintenance of existing social ties
and the formation of new connections. Much of the early research on
online communities assume that individuals using these systems would be
connecting with others outside their preexisting social group or
location, liberating them to form communities around shared interests,
as opposed to shared geography. Other researchers have suggested that the professional use of network sites produce "social capital".
For individuals, social capital allows a person to draw on resources
from other members of the networks to which he or she belongs.
These resources can take the form of useful information, personal
relationships, or the capacity to organize groups. As well, networks
within these services also can be established or built by joining
special interest groups that others have made, or creating one and
asking others to join.
Curriculum use
According
to Doering, Beach, and O'Brien, a future English curriculum needs to
recognize a significant shift in how adolescents are communicating with
each other.
Curriculum uses of social networking services can also include sharing
curriculum-related resources. Educators tap into user-generated content
to find and discuss curriculum-related content for students. Responding
to the popularity of social networking services among many students,
teachers are increasingly using social networks to supplement teaching
and learning in traditional classroom environments. This way they can
provide new opportunities for enriching existing curriculum through
creative, authentic and flexible, non-linear learning experiences. Some social networks, such as English, baby! and LiveMocha, are explicitly education-focused and couple instructional content with an educational peer environment. The new Web 2.0
technologies built into most social networking services promote
conferencing, interaction, creation, research on a global scale,
enabling educators to share, remix, and repurpose curriculum resources.
In short, social networking services can become research networks as
well as learning networks.
Learning use
Educators and advocates of new digital literacies
are confident that social networking encourages the development of
transferable, technical, and social skills of value in formal and
informal learning. In a formal learning environment, goals or objectives are determined by an outside department or agency. Tweeting, instant messaging, or blogging
enhances student involvement. Students who would not normally
participate in class are more apt to partake through social network
services. Networking allows participants the opportunity for
just-in-time learning and higher levels of engagement.
The use of SNSs allow educators to enhance the prescribed curriculum.
When learning experiences are infused into a website student utilize
every day for fun, students realize that learning can and should be a
part of everyday life. It does not have to be separate and unattached.
Informal learning consists of the learner setting the goals and
objectives. It has been claimed that media no longer just influence
human culture; they are human culture.
With such a high number of users between the ages of 13–18, a number of
skills are developed. Participants hone technical skills in choosing to
navigate through social networking services. This includes elementary
items such as sending an instant message or updating a status. The
development of new media skills are paramount in helping youth navigate
the digital world with confidence.
Social networking services foster learning through what Jenkins (2006) describes as a "participatory culture".
A participatory culture consists of a space that allows engagement,
sharing, mentoring, and an opportunity for social interaction.
Participants of social network services avail of this opportunity.
Informal learning, in the forms of participatory and social learning
online, is an excellent tool for teachers to sneak in material and ideas
that students will identify with and therefore, in a secondary manner,
students will learn skills that would normally be taught in a formal
setting in the more interesting and engaging environment of social
learning. Sites like Twitter provide students with the opportunity to converse and collaborate with others in real time.
Social networking services provide a virtual "space" for learners. James Gee (2004) suggests that affinity spaces instantiate participation, collaboration, distribution, dispersion of expertise, and relatedness. Registered users share and search for knowledge which contributes to informal learning.
Constraints
In
the past, social networking services were viewed as a distraction and
offered no educational benefit. Blocking these social networks was a
form of protection for students against wasting time, bullying, and
invasions of privacy. In an educational setting, Facebook, for example,
is seen by many instructors and educators as a frivolous, time-wasting
distraction from schoolwork, and it is not uncommon to be banned in
junior high or high school computer labs. Cyberbullying
has become an issue of concern with social networking services.
According to the UK Children Go Online survey of 9- to 19-year-olds, it
was found that a third have received bullying comments online.
To avoid this problem, many school districts/boards have blocked access
to social networking services such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter
within the school environment. Social networking services often include a
lot of personal information posted publicly, and many believe that
sharing personal information is a window into privacy theft. Schools
have taken action to protect students from this. It is believed that
this outpouring of identifiable information and the easy communication
vehicle that social networking services open the door to sexual
predators, cyberbullying, and cyberstalking.
In contrast, however, 70% of social media using teens and 85% of adults
believe that people are mostly kind to one another on social network
sites.
Recent research suggests that there has been a shift in blocking
the use of social networking services. In many cases, the opposite is
occurring as the potential of online networking services is being
realized. It has been suggested that if schools block them [social
networking services], they are preventing students from learning the
skills they need.
Banning social networking [...] is not only inappropriate but also
borderline irresponsible when it comes to providing the best educational
experiences for students. Schools and school districts have the option of educating safe media usage as well as incorporating digital media into the classroom experience, thus preparing students for the literacy they will encounter in the future.
Positive correlates
A
cyberpsychology research study conducted by Australian researchers
demonstrated that a number of positive psychological outcomes are
related to Facebook use. These researchers established that people can derive a sense of social
connectedness and belongingness in the online environment. Importantly,
this online social connectedness was associated with lower levels of
depression and anxiety, and greater levels of subjective well-being.
These findings suggest that the nature of online social networking
determines the outcomes of online social network use.
Grassroots organizing
Social
networks are being used by activists as a means of low-cost grassroots
organizing. Extensive use of an array of social networking sites enabled
organizers of 2009 National Equality March
to mobilize an estimated 200,000 participants to march on Washington
with a cost savings of up to 85% per participant over previous methods.
The August 2011 England riots were similarly considered to have escalated and been fuelled by this type of grassroots organization.
Employment
A
rise in social network use is being driven by college students using
the services to network with professionals for internship and job
opportunities. Many studies have been done on the effectiveness of
networking online in a college setting, and one notable one is by Phipps
Arabie and Yoram Wind published in Advances in Social Network Analysis.
Many schools have implemented online alumni directories which serve as
makeshift social networks that current and former students can turn to
for career advice. However, these alumni directories tend to suffer from
an oversupply of advice-seekers and an undersupply of advice providers.
One new social networking service, Ask-a-peer, aims to solve this
problem by enabling advice seekers to offer modest compensation to
advisers for their time. LinkedIn is also another great resource. It
helps alumni, students and unemployed individuals look for work. They
are also able to connect with others professionally and network with
companies.
In addition, employers have been found to use social network sites to screen job candidates.
Hosting service
A social network hosting service
is a web hosting service that specifically hosts the user creation of
web-based social networking services, alongside related applications.
Trade network
A
social trade network is a service that allows participants interested
in specific trade sectors to share related contents and personal
opinions.
Business model
Few
social networks charge money for membership. In part, this may be
because social networking is a relatively new service, and the value of
using them has not been firmly established in customers' minds.
Companies such as Myspace and Facebook sell online advertising
on their site. Their business model is based upon large membership
count, and charging for membership would be counterproductive.
Some believe that the deeper information that the sites have on each
user will allow much better targeted advertising than any other site can
currently provide.
In recent times, Apple has been critical of the Google and Facebook
model, in which users are defined as product and a commodity, and their
data being sold for marketing revenue.
Social networks operate under an autonomous business model, in which a
social network's members serve dual roles as both the suppliers and the
consumers of content. This is in contrast to a traditional business
model, where the suppliers and consumers are distinct agents. Revenue is
typically gained in the autonomous business model via advertisements,
but subscription-based revenue is possible when membership and content
levels are sufficiently high.
Social interaction
People
use social networking sites for meeting new friends, finding old
friends, or locating people who have the same problems or interests they
have, called niche networking. More and more relationships and
friendships are being formed online and then carried to an offline
setting. Psychologist and University of Hamburg professor Erich H. Witte
says that relationships which start online are much more likely to
succeed. In this regard, there are studies which predict tie strength
among the friends
on social networking websites. One online dating site claims that 2%
of all marriages begin at its site, the equivalent of 236 marriages a
day. Other sites claim one in five relationships begin online.
Users do not necessarily share with others the content which is
of most interest to them, but rather that which projects a good
impression of themselves.
While everyone agrees that social networking has had a significant
impact on social interaction, there remains a substantial disagreement
as to whether the nature of this impact is completely positive. A number
of scholars have done research on the negative effects of Internet
communication as well. These researchers have contended that this form
of communication is an impoverished version of conventional face-to-face
social interactions, and therefore produce negative outcomes such as
loneliness and depression for users who rely on social networking
entirely. By engaging solely in online communication, interactions
between communities, families, and other social groups are weakened.
Issues
Social networking services have led to many issues regarding privacy, bullying, social anxiety and potential for misuse.
Investigations
Social networking services are increasingly being used in legal and criminal investigations. Information posted on sites such as MySpace and Facebook has been used by police (forensic profiling),
probation, and university officials to prosecute users of said sites.
In some situations, content posted on MySpace has been used in court.
Facebook is increasingly being used by school administrations and
law enforcement agencies as a source of evidence against student users.
This site being the number one online destination for college students,
allows users to create profile pages with personal details. These pages
can be viewed by other registered users from the same school, which
often include resident assistants and campus police who have signed up
for the service. One UK
police force has sifted pictures from Facebook and arrested some people
who had been photographed in a public place holding a weapon such as a
knife (having a weapon in a public place is illegal).
Application domains
Government applications
Banner in
Bangkok, observed on June 30, 2014, during the
2014 Thai coup d'état, informing the
Thai public that 'like' or 'share' activity on social media could land them in prison
Social networking is more recently being used by various government
agencies. Social networking tools serve as a quick and easy way for the
government to get the suggestion of the public and to keep the public
updated on their activity, however this comes with a significant risk of
abuse, for example, to cultivate a culture of fear such as that outlined in Nineteen Eighty-Four or THX-1138.
The Centers for Disease Control demonstrated the importance of vaccinations on the popular children's site Whyville and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has a virtual island on Second Life where people can explore caves or explore the effects of global warming. Likewise, NASA has taken advantage of a few social networking tools, including Twitter and Flickr. The NSA is taking advantage of them all. NASA is using such tools to aid the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee, whose goal it is to ensure that the nation is on a vigorous and sustainable path to achieving its boldest aspirations in space.
Business applications
The
use of social networking services in an enterprise context presents the
potential of having a major impact on the world of business and work. Social networks connect people at low cost; this can be beneficial for entrepreneurs and small businesses
looking to expand their contact bases. These networks often act as a
customer relationship management tool for companies selling products and
services. Companies can also use social networks for advertising in the
form of banners and text ads. Since businesses operate globally, social
networks can make it easier to keep in touch with contacts around the
world. Applications for social networking sites have extended toward
businesses and brands are creating their own, high functioning sites, a
sector known as brand networking.
It is the idea that a brand can build its consumer relationship by
connecting their consumers to the brand image on a platform that
provides them relative content, elements of participation, and a ranking
or score system. Brand networking is a new way to capitalize on social
trends as a marketing tool. The power of social networks is beginning to
permeate into internal culture of businesses where they are finding
uses for collaboration, file sharing and knowledge transfer. The term "enterprise social software" is becoming increasingly popular for these types of applications.
Dating applications
Many social networks provide an online environment for people to
communicate and exchange personal information for dating purposes.
Intentions can vary from looking for a one time date, short-term
relationships, and long-term relationships.
Most of these social networks, just like online dating services,
require users to give out certain pieces of information. This usually
includes a user's age, gender, location, interests, and perhaps a
picture. Releasing very personal information is usually discouraged for
safety reasons.
This allows other users to search or be searched by some sort of
criteria, but at the same time, people can maintain a degree of
anonymity similar to most online dating services. Online dating sites
are similar to social networks in the sense that users create profiles
to meet and communicate with others, but their activities on such sites
are for the sole purpose of finding a person of interest to date. Social
networks do not necessarily have to be for dating; many users simply
use it for keeping in touch with friends, and colleagues.
However, an important difference between social networks and
online dating services is the fact that online dating sites usually
require a fee, where social networks are free.
This difference is one of the reasons the online dating industry is
seeing a massive decrease in revenue due to many users opting to use
social networking services instead. Many popular online dating services
such as Match.com, Yahoo Personals, and eHarmony.com are seeing a decrease in users, where social networks like MySpace
and Facebook are experiencing an increase in users. The number of
Internet users in the United States that visit online dating sites has
fallen from a peak of 21% in 2003 to 10% in 2006.
Whether it is the cost of the services, the variety of users with
different intentions, or any other reason, it is undeniable that social
networking sites are quickly becoming the new way to find dates online.
Educational applications
The National School Boards Association
reports that almost 60% of students who use social networking talk
about education topics online, and more than 50% talk specifically about
schoolwork. Yet the vast majority of school districts have stringent
rules against nearly all forms of social networking during the school
day—even though students and parents report few problem behaviors
online. Social networks focused on supporting relationships between
teachers and their students are now used for learning, educators
professional development, and content sharing. HASTAC
is a collaborative social network space for new modes of learning and
research in higher education, K-12, and lifelong learning; Ning supports teachers; TermWiki, TeachStreet
and other sites are being built to foster relationships that include
educational blogs, portfolios, formal and ad hoc communities, as well as
communication such as chats, discussion threads, and synchronous
forums. These sites also have content sharing and rating features.
Social networks are also emerging as online yearbooks, both public and private. One such service is MyYearbook,
which allows anyone from the general public to register and connect. A
new trend emerging is private label yearbooks accessible only by
students, parents, and teachers of a particular school, similar to Facebook's beginning within Harvard.
Finance applications
The use of virtual currency systems inside social networks create new opportunities for global finance. Hub Culture operates a virtual currency Ven used for global transactions among members, product sales and financial trades in commodities and carbon credits. In May 2010, carbon pricing
contracts were introduced to the weighted basket of currencies and
commodities that determine the floating exchange value of Ven. The
introduction of carbon to the calculation price of the currency made Ven
the first and only currency that is linked to the environment.
Medical and health applications
Social
networks are beginning to be adopted by healthcare professionals as a
means to manage institutional knowledge, disseminate peer to peer
knowledge and to highlight individual physicians and institutions. The
advantage of using a dedicated medical social networking site is that
all the members are screened against the state licensing board list of
practitioners. A new trend is emerging with social networks created to help its members with various physical and mental ailments. For people suffering from life-altering diseases or chronic health conditions, companies such as HealthUnlocked and PatientsLikeMe
offers their members the chance to connect with others dealing with
similar issues and share experiences. For alcoholics and addicts,
SoberCircle gives people in recovery the ability to communicate with one
another and strengthen their recovery through the encouragement of
others who can relate to their situation. DailyStrength
is also a website that offers support groups for a wide array of topics
and conditions, including the support topics offered by PatientsLikeMe and SoberCircle. Some social networks aim to encourage healthy lifestyles in their users. SparkPeople and HealthUnlocked offer community and social networking tools for peer support during weight loss. Fitocracy and QUENTIQ
are focused on exercise, enabling users to share their own workouts and
comment on those of other users. Other aspects of social network usage
include the analysis of data coming from existing social networks (such
as Twitter) to discover large crowd concentration events (based on
tweets location statistical analysis) and disseminate the information to
e.g. mobility-challenged individuals for e.g. avoiding the specific
areas and optimizing their journey in an urban environment.
Social and political applications
Social networking sites have recently showed a value in social and political movements. In the Egyptian revolution, Facebook and Twitter both played an allegedly pivotal role in keeping people connected to the revolt. Egyptian activists have credited social networking sites with providing a platform for planning protest and sharing news from Tahrir Square
in real time. By presenting a platform for thousands of people to
instantaneously share videos of mainly events featuring brutality,
social networking can be a vital tool in revolutions. On the flip side, social networks enable government authorities to easily identify, and repress, protestors and dissidents.
Another thing that social media helps with in political applications is
getting the younger generations involved in politics and ongoing
political issues.
Perhaps the most significant political application of social media is Barack Obama's election campaign in 2008.
It was the first of its kind, as it successfully incorporated social
media into its campaign winning strategy, evolving the way of political
campaigns forevermore in the ever-changing technological world we find
ourselves in today. His campaign won by engaging everyday people and
empowering volunteers, donors, and advocates, through social networks,
text messaging, email messaging and online videos.
Obama's social media campaign was vast, with his campaign boasting
5 million 'friends' on over 15 social networking sites, with over
3 million friends just on Facebook.
Another significant success of the campaign was online videos, with
nearly 2,000 YouTube videos being put online, receiving over 80 million
views.
In 2007, when Obama first announced his candidacy, there was no
such thing as an iPhone or Twitter. However, a year later, Obama was
sending out voting reminders to thousands of people through Twitter,
showing just how fast social media moves. Obama's campaign was current
and needed to be successful in incorporating social media, as social
media acts best and is most effective in real time.
Building up to the 2012 presidential election, it was interesting
to see how strong the influence of social media would be following the
2008 campaigns, where Obama's winning campaign had been social
media-heavy, whereas McCain's campaign did not really grasp social
media. John F. Kennedy
was the first president who really understood television, and
similarly, Obama is the first president to fully understand the power of
social media.
Obama has recognized social media is about creating relationships and
connections and therefore used social media to the advantage of
presidential election campaigns, in which Obama has dominated his
opponents in terms of social media space.
Other political campaigns have followed on from Obama's
successful social media campaigns, recognizing the power of social media
and incorporating it as a key factor embedded within their political
campaigns, for example, Donald Trump's presidential electoral campaign,
2016. Dan Pfeiffer, Obama's former digital and social media guru,
commented that Donald Trump is "way better at the internet than anyone
else in the GOP which is partly why he is winning".
Research has shown that 66% of social media users actively engage
in political activity online, and like many other behaviors, online
activities translate into offline ones.
With research from the 'MacArthur Research Network on Youth and
Participatory Politics' stating that young people who are politically
active online are double as likely to vote than those who are not
politically active online.
Therefore, political applications of social networking sites are
crucial, particularly to engage with the youth, who perhaps are the
least educated in politics and the most in social networking sites.
Social media is, therefore, a very effective way in which politicians
can connect with a younger audience through their political campaigns.
On June 28, 2020, The New York Times released an article sharing the finding of two researchers who studied the impact of TikTok,
a video-sharing and social networking application, on political
expression. The application, besides being a creative space to express
oneself, has been used maliciously to spread disinformation ahead of US
President Donald Trump's Tulsa rally in Oklahoma and amplified footage of police brutality at Black Lives Matter protests.
Crowdsourcing applications
Crowdsourcing social media platform, such as Design Contest, Arcbazar, Tongal, combined group of professional freelancers, such as designers,
and help them communicate with business owners interested in their
suggestion. This process is often used to subdivide tedious work or to
fund-raise startup companies and charities, and can also occur offline.
Open source software
There are a number of projects that aim to develop free and open source software
to use for social networking services. These technologies are often
referred to as social engine or social networking engine software.
Largest social networking services
The
following is a list of the largest social networking services, in order
by number of active users, as of April 2021, as published by Statista:
*Platforms have not published updated user figures in the past 12 months, figures may be out of date and less reliable
**Figure uses daily active users, so monthly active user number is likely higher