I define social network sites as a place online where individuals create their own profiles that connects them with either friends or freinds of friends. It's sort of building a personal network that connects people together. Social network sites alike most of the things isn't perfect, it too has its advantages and disadvantages.
We as users can get many things out of SNS, we are able to gain knowledge from many aspects as well as keeping track on whats going on around us. Through video sharing, for example in Facebook, many documentaries are posted by your freinds, they share whatever they think are interesting and share it with others. Me for an example, had learned quite a number of things through this, they have removed news clips that aren't shown in news and updates that had just arrived, for example, we get to know things that happened which hasn't been shown in the news yet. We also share interesting and funny videos through SNS, it sometimes is really important, like to brighten up someones day, release daily stress and also to calm someones mind down. For the safety of the users, SNS also has their own way of enabling users to set their profiles private, which means their profile are only viewable to freinds, strangers will only have limited access like viewing a single photo.
Social network sites also helps you remember your family and friends birthday and their other personal information, of course only is the person has accpeted your invitation or he/she had added you, which also can be very dangerous, this will be discussed later. Moving on, SNS like Friendster are one of the earlier SNS that grew popular, in encourages you to make many friends, due to its view and add a friend of your friend thing. It allows you to learn more about an individual, their culture, what they enjoy doing and other similar stuffs. Facebook even has this thing called Mindjolt games that are really lame looking yet annoying but somewhat addictive. After you had done spending hours on the game, then you would realise later like what was i thinking playing this game for hours. But for all you know, you will visit it again sooner then you think. The part where makes you addicted is the part where you cant stand your freinds score above yours.
Photo sharing is another nice application that SNS provides, but it has its danger in it. We can control what we put in our profiles, but there is no controlling others, your friend might have snapped an unwanted photo of you, and somehow is dumb enough to upload and tag you in ti, you don't only lose your confidence, you might do silly things as well, this had happened to many youths. Providing our true information online can get us into trouble, because people with bad intentions might use this to get bribes or other harmful stuffs, some even end up in kidnaps. This is why the growth in the popularity of SNS has generated concerns among some parents, school officials, and government leaders about the potential risks posed to young people when personal information is made available in SNS.
People now in our time do not actually socialize well enough as compared to their parents and grandparents, as people now meet and chat online. This doesn't only affects them verbally, it also have them lose their confidence when communicating with starngers or even people close to them. Youths having bad habits and neglecting their studies are also due to the addiction to SNS.
I will conclude that SNS are really useful sites if it used in the correct manner.
