Response

For my response I am reading Tom Landers essay on the good and bad of social networking. Tom captures the lack of privacy involved in being a part of the social networking. At the same time he draws on how there is a constant battle between alienation and overexposure. He shows numerous examples but the one which I found very true was how being facebook can either get you a job or lose you a job opportunity. I've heard numerous times that companies have started doing background checks on applicants by checking their facebook. Personally I have always thought that facebook almost lost it's appeal to my generation when kid's parents started getting facebooks and "friending" their kids.

To reflect on Tom's paper I feel that social networks will lead to either forcing people to be more candid with what they do online or perhaps people will come to understand that much of what is said on facebook and other social networks is said with no ill or crude intent. On a personal note I can't express how many times I've qouted a lyric or a movie only to get scolded by my mother, often ending with me saying "mom it was just in good fun" to which she often replies "then maybe you should be studying instead of having fun." Personal mother woes aside, I think that my generation should be more careful when it comes to what is put on facebook, I realize this makes me look pretty hypocritical as their are a fair number of things I would be less then proud of people seeing on my facebook.

Back to constructive comments on Tom's paper. I felt the best part of the paper was in his metaphor for the internet creating a chain between people. He created an interesting visualization for how the world has become extremely small and every person is connected in it causing a mass of assimilation which penetrates ethnicity, culture, and religion. I can't tell you how many people all seem to have an opinion on whether lil' Wayne deserves more or less jail time according to facebook. Whether you really have a strong opinion on lil Wayne people seem compelled to join the groups their friends become fans of. This assimilation creates a lack of diversity in thought and ideas. My only real critique of the paper was I felt it didn't really pick a side, which would be fine but I find it hard to read the rest of his paper without a majority of people seeing the vast negatives the social network has created. all in all though I enjoyed the paper and the insightful views on the social network.