Modern Day Social Networking

Since it was established, the internet has grown to be more important than the computer itself. Till this day it has influenced the behavior and personality of the people that use it. The internet allows one to express their views and be able to find their identity through different social networking sites such as Myspace, Facebook, Tumbler, and etc.  

In the documentary “Growing Up Online” some of the issues that were raised were the dangers of not having anyone to be able to monitor the internet. Since parents would not know what their children are looking at, this would open the doors for bad behavior such as talking and messaging with strangers and sexual predators. The presentation also revealed teens showing off their different personalities which they would be afraid to show in public. An example of this was Autumn Eddows, who has had an increase in confidence was from Growing Up Online. She was from a small town and was not accepted until she went online and found a group that she could relate to. Autumn was shown as a Goth. She had no friends and after her parents shut down her site she had lost all her confidence. The internet has many social networking sites which later contribute to the addiction of always wanting to be connected. We constantly want / need to check an email or a message of a friend. The internet is also said to be a waste of time as there are more productive things like reading that can be done instead of using a websites like Sparknotes.

In my opinion I feel the documentary twisted some of the information which made me disagree with some of the details. The use of a few bad cases compiled together made the internet seem as an unfriendly place in the PBS presentation, as they were trying to show the internet as a place where only bad things can happen. An example of this was how one of the students sent explicit messages to another student which led to a fight. In my experiences many people tend to be themselves on social networking sites; however I understand how people may change their identities online to achieve something for themselves. On a site like YouTube which has millions of users and commentators, many people like to express their views by using crude language because of the simple fact they can and will likely never get a response. We can’t say that the creation of the internet has had a negative effect on people because the truth is, till this day the pros of having the internet far outweigh the cons.