The invention and advent of Internet bestowed us with many benefits and advantages and Social Networking is perhaps the most significant and important of these advantages. Social networking has revolutionized and changed the world in quite a number of ways. It has become an important and vital part of everyday lives of people across the globe and that symbolizes the significance that Social Networking holds in today’s world. Social Networking has become immensely popular due to the multiple benefits and advantages that it offers its users. These advantages range from communication to marketing and hence affect the lives of people in more than one ways.
Social Networking has emerged as a very potent and useful medium for communication. One can easily stay in touch with his/her family and friends and can share his/her day-to-day life and happenings in the most lucid and easy manner. One can chat, talk, and share pictures and videos with his/her near and dear ones at zero cost. Thus, social networking provides a common platform for people to stay in touch with each other regardless of their locations. Social networking is fast replacing conventional methods of communications like emails, telephone conversations etc. Social Networking sites also provide a way for unknown people to communicate to each other and build connections. One can easily look for other users based on common interest, gender or age and start talking or communicating instantly. This feature of social networking to communicate with known and unknown people has made our world much more connected and tolerant. People get to exchange their thoughts, views and hence this makes them much more aware and alert. There are views that social networking has lead to increased harassment and exploitation of people since they get in touch with people whom they do not know and hence the chances of them being cheated increase. Though the argument is valid up to a certain extent it fails to take the credit of facilitating cheap and easy communication away from social networking.
Social Networking has emerged as one of the biggest forms of advertising off late. It benefits both, the businesses as well as consumers. On one hand it provides business houses with a large population of country specific consumers to advertise their products or services in, it also helps consumers in getting the best deals and keeping them aware of the latest products and services. Almost all major companies have turned to social networking websites like Facebook, Google+ etc. to advertise their products and to stay connected to their consumers directly. Social Networking as a tool for advertisements has been giving stiff competition to traditional forms of advertisements like Television and Magazines. According to latest data while Facebook has close to 1 Billion registered users, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn have 517 million, 400 million, and 175 million registered users respectively (Bennett 2013). The figures are quite self-explanatory when it comes to explaining the soaring interest of advertisers in using these websites as a medium to publicize their products on. Though there’s a lobby, which vies against marketing on social media platforms terming it ineffective. According to them marketing on social media hardly converts into sales, but the situation looks quite different. With continuous increase in number of companies taking the social networking route for promotions, these points look highly insignificant.
Social Networking services can provide an accessible and powerful toolkit for highlighting and acting on the issues and causes that affect and interest young people (digizen 2013). Social Networking is increasingly being used for many purposeful reasons. While many organizations and people use to organize activities and events to make people aware about certain issues, it is also being used by politicians for their election campaigns and even afterwards to stay in constant touch with their electorate. The presidential elections in 2012 highlighted the importance of social networking as an imperative way of getting to the voters. It is also increasingly being used as a platform for citizens to raise their voices against the wrongdoings by their governments and also against the corrupt and tyrannical regimes. It has lead to increased demand of democracy across the world with people able to communicate and get in touch with each other over matter of general concern. The Arab Uprising of 2011, which saw the ouster of Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and the immediate and imminent overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt has often been termed as a social networking uprising or revolution for the sole reason that social media played a vital role or part in these revolutions (journalism 2012). Social Networks facilitated the mobilization of crowds and helped them to stay in touch with each other. The phenomenon is still being used in many countries and indeed very successfully. Thus social networking has bestowed people with the power to realize their rights and have made them much more aware. People have become a party to decision-makings by government across the globe, thanks to social Networking. Social Networking, according to some also arms anti-social and notorious elements to misinform people and hence leading to unrest. Some incidents have been reported in recent times where an uprising took place based on wrong facts and information and hence created havoc. But, this argument is incapable of diluting the positive impact that networking has had. Such incidents have taught people to differentiate between right and wrong and such incidents have decreased off late.
It can indeed be safely concluded that social networking has become an indispensable part our lives and its significance and value is bound to increase in near future. It not only provides people with a common platform to communicate or to entertain, but can also be used as an important tool to mobilize people and to carry out wide scale revolutions. Its economic impact is also noteworthy with companies using it as a medium to reach their potential customers and consumers using it to make smart choices and thus it drives e-commerce in a sense. Thus, Social Networking is galore with benefits and empowers common people like nothing else does.
Works Cited
Bennett, Shea. ” 100 Amazing Social Media Statistics, Facts and Figures”
MediaBistro. 25 April 2013. Web. 2013
< http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/100-social-media-stats_b33696>
Digizen. ” Young People and Social Networking Services”
Digizen. 25 April 2013. Web. 2013
< http://www.digizen.org/socialnetworking/benefits.aspx>
Journalism. ” The Role of Social Media in the Arab Uprisings”
Journalism.org. 25 April 2013. Web. 2012
< http://www.journalism.org/analysis_report/role_social_media_arab_uprisings>
