Social Networking

         Social Networking sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn have many uses in the corporate world. In his article, “Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting,” Frank Langfitt addressed the value of the use of these technologies, specifically LinkedIn, with regards to job recruiting. LinkedIn is a relatively new technology that allows job recruiters to search an entire network of eight million professionals to find high-quality candidates for a particular job in mind. This is beneficial to both recruiters, by helping them connect with candidates much faster, and to job hunters, by allowing them to be found more easily. 

Of course, there comes a dark side with Social Networking, most notably with anonymous-user forums such as Campus Gossip and CollegeACB. As they are addressed in Jeffrey R. Young’s article, “They’re Back, and They’re Bad: Campus-Gossip Web Sites,” these forums encourage bullying and defamation, as racy comments can be made by anonymous users “hiding” behind a screen. Social Networking technologies are ever-evolving, and campus-specific forums are no exception. Yik Yak is a campus specific act that uses a “voting” or “like” feature. When a comment is down-voted or un-liked 5 times, it is removed. They encourage users to either down-vote or report posts containing hateful/harmful comments towards a specific person, posts containing names of people, etc. While still not perfect, it is a step in the right direction. 

Social Networking technologies burst onto the scene with countless practical uses with seemingly no limit. While there is a “dark side” to these technologies, as there is to almost everything in the world, it is safe to say that these ever-changing technologies have a net positive impact on society.