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Social Networking

Social networks can be an amazing thing for society. It allows for everyone to have a voice and for people to connect with friends who may live at great distance. That being said, there is an ugly side to social networks. There is a vast amount of bullying that goes on between young people on the web. People hiding behind their computers feel safe to say things that they would never say in person. The NYT article, "Antisocial Networking" points out that young people are verbally communicating less and less and are more likely to text a friend than call them. As amazing as texting is, for a quick word, things can often get lost or misconstrued when written.
In addition, there are some safety and privacy concerns that arise with social networking. In the cybersecurity and usability fields there is something known as the privacy paradox, that is that people express concerns about privacy but don't necessarily take steps to protect their privacy. Moreover there is a huge trade-off between privacy and usability and with the developers of social networks making them as user friendly as possible, privacy can be at risk. In the article "Facebook Privacy Is So Confusing Even the Zuckerberg Family Photo Isn't Private" one can see the difficulty of knowing how to keep things on facebook private. 

The Atlantic, "Facebook Privacy Is So Confusing Even the Zuckerberg Family Photo Isn't Private"

 The NYT, "Antisocial Networking"

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