You look really pretty on this photo!
Youth into a social networks world
Social networking ďƒœ Social networking is the process of finding friends and of managing friendships through the internet. People who wish to meet others on line put up their most compelling and attractive presentations through their profile pages. They join
groups and communicate with others by commenting on topics or by introducing topics that hope to encourage discussion.
Social networks’ timeline
Orkut 2004
Facebook 2004 Usteam.tv 2006 Fotolog 2002
Photobucket 2004
ICQ 1996 Napster 1998
1996
1997
1998
Friendster 2002
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
LinkedIn 2003 Six degrees 1997
Blogger 1999
Twitter 2006
Digg 2004
Wikipédia 2001
2004
2005
2006
Kontain 2008
2007
2008
Flickr 2009
Youtube 2005 Tumblr 2007
Hi5 2003
Black Planet 1999 Myspace 2003
Yahoo 360 2005
2009
Initial Objectives ďƒœ Learn all we can about social networks, making reference to the impact of social networks in society; ďƒœ Learn the advantages and disadvantages of social networks; ďƒœ Investigate the opinion of students about social networks.
Were they achieved?
To what kind of activities are
social networks related to? Photography
Information
Video
Share of interests
relationships
Businnes
Twitter is an information network. Millions of people, organizations, and businesses use it to discover and share new information. On Twitter, anyone can read, write and share messages of up to 140 characters. These messages, or Tweets, are public and available to anyone interested in them. Twitter users subscribe to your messages by following your account. Twitter is a powerful real-time way of communicating, because it enables its users to combine messages that are quick to write, easy to read, public, opt-in, and accessible anywhere. What does Twitter do for businesses? Twitter is used to quickly share information, gather market intelligence and insights, and build relationships with people who care about your company.
Flickr - almost certainly the best online photo management and sharing application in the world - has two main goals: 1. Help people making their photos available to the people who matter to them. It allows people to share moments captured on their camera phones and their best pictures or videos to the whole world, or privately. 2. Enable new ways of organizing photos and videos. Part of the solution is to make the process of organizing photos or videos collaborative. In Flickr, we can give our friends, family, and other contacts permission to organize our stuff not just to add comments, but also notes and tags.
ďƒœ Fotolog is the world's leading photo-blogging site, one of the world's largest social networking sites and a global cultural phenomenon. More than 22 million members in over 200 countries use Fotolog as a simple and fun way to express themselves through online photo diaries or photo blogs. ďƒœ What makes Fotolog special is not just the ability to post photos, but the way it makes it easy to connect with others.Launched in May 2002 by Scott Heiferman and Adam Seifer as a small community project of 200 friends, Fotolog today generates more than 4 billion page views and receives more than 19 million unique visitors each month. 36% of its users are young people with ages between 15 and 24.
ďƒœ A wiki is a website whose users can add, modify, or delete its content via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a rich-text editor. Examples include community websites, corporate intranets, knowledge management systems, and notetaking. ďƒœ Wikis may serve many different purposes. Some permit control over different functions. For example, editing rights may permit changing, adding or removing material. Others may permit access without enforcing access control. Other rules may also be imposed for organizing content.
ďƒœ YouTube is a video-sharing website, on which users can upload, view and share videos. ďƒœ The company is based in San Bruno, California, and uses Adobe Flash Video and HTML technology to display a wide variety of user-generated video content, including movie clips, TV clips, and music videos, as well as amateur content such as video blogging and short original videos.
ďƒœ Blogger is a blog-publishing service that allows private or multi-user blogs with timestamped entries. It was created by Pyra Labs, which was bought by Google in 2003. Generally, the blogs are hosted by Google at a subdomain of blogspot.com. Up until May 1, 2010 Blogger allowed users to publish blogs on other hosts, via FTP. All such blogs had to be moved to Google's own servers, with domains other than blogspot.com allowed via Custom URLs.
ďƒœ Tumblr is a blogging platform that allows users to publish text, images, video, links, quotes, audio and "dialogueâ€?. Users are able to "follow" other users and see your posts on your dashboard (dashboard). You can also "like" or "reblogar" other blogs. The customization system emphasizes ease of use and allows users to use special tags system to create your themes
ďƒœ Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook is a website and social networking service that was launched on February 4 in 2004. The users must register before using the site after it, can create a personal profile, add other users as friends and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile. In addition, users can join groups of common interest with other users. Facebook allows anyone who claims to have at least 13 years to become registered users of the site.
ďƒœ The hi5 is a social networking site that by 2008, is the 20th most visited sites on the Internet. The company was founded in 2003 by Ramu Yalamanchi who is currently the director. ďƒœ In hi5, users create a personal page to show your interests, age and place of residence, as well as upload pictures where other users can comment on them. The site also provides the ability to create photo albums and install a media player to play your favorite songs. Users can send each other requests for friendships, accepting and rejecting those who receive and lock users directly.
Orkut is a social networking website, similar to Facebook. Its purpose is to provide an online community where users can maintain existing relationships by connecting with friends and family, and where they can also meet new friends and interact with others in various ways. Orkut is especially popular in Brazil and India. Curiosity: Orkut was named after its creator, Orkut Büyükkökten, an employee of Google Inc.
ďƒœ Friendster is a social networking website, similar to Facebook and MySpace, connects individuals across the world with the hopes of helping them develop friendships. Friendster's popularity has decreased since its inception as more and more social networks with a similar platform are developed.
ďƒœ LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network and it connects the users to them trusted contacts and helps them to exchange knowledge, ideas and opportunities with a broader network of professionals.
Benefits of social networks Young people want to go online check about their friends and social networks were created with this aim. The world is greatly influenced by social networking and it benefits young people’s lifestyle: 1. Staying connected with friends: social networking is the easiest way to stay in touch with our friends. 2. As for means of communication: it is a very influent mean of communication. 3. Keeping up-to-date on news more quickly: some social networking sites constantly update news information. 4. Achieving a more personal connection: having a social networking profile allows you to keep informed on recent happenings with people in your network. 5. Making friends with similar interests and "likes“ 6. Networking, networking, networking: having a social networking profile allows users to make and maintain business connections. 7. For free advertising: having a profile allows more chances for exposure and opportunities for marketing your work and yourself. 8. For creative expression 9. Experience global exposure: the Internet has massively decreased the size of the world. 10. Creating a positive impact on the world: social networking allows users to band together and create strong alliances for a certain cause.
Disadvantages of social networks The disadvantages are endless and we can mention the following ones: ďƒœ Identity theft is when someone you know - or don't know - steals your identity and claims to be you. ďƒœ Sexual predators are probably the worst-feared online danger. Because Internet users can remain anonymous or lie about their identities, teenagers really don't know with whom they are talking. Predators and pedophiles can use the Internet to exchange names with potential victims.
Advices There are many steps you can take to protect yourself and your family from online social networking dangers. Never give out last name, phone number, address, school or other identifying information Being polite and not writing anything that would be construed as sexual, racial or personal misconduct. Frequently change your passwords to your online social networks, as well as to any other account you access through the Internet. Know with whom you are chatting Don't believe everything someone tells you about himself or herself If you ever feel uncomfortable with what someone is talking about, tell an adult.
Graphics and Results
If yes which one(s) did you publish your profile? Facebook Twitter Friendster hi5
Do you have profile on any social network like facebook or twitter?
Myspace
Yes No
If you are not participating in any social network website, what is the main reason? It isn't interesting for me
I don't have any time It's dangerous my identity is exposed
Graphics and Results How often do you check your social networks(s)?
If you have a profile, how many "friends" do you have in your social network(s)' profile?
Less than 50 50-100 101-200 More than 200
Daily 3 times a week Once a week once a month
What are your aims when you use your social network(s)?
Planning events Making new friends
Chatting Free time Another
Conclusion
As a matter of fact, while the number of ways to interact via the Internet are rapidly increasing, so are the types of online social networking dangers. Long gone are the days of innocently thinking that the individual who we are conversing with online is really who he or she claims to be. But, since when have we become so petty that our virtual world takes over our real life? Are we that silly to let these things affect us? Furthermore, another aspect is the loss of private space. For today’s generation, things that were considered personal a generation before, are all public. The social networking sites and social media has revolutionized the world, bringing us closer than ever before, making life easier than it ever was. We can exploit this and use it for a better life, a better tomorrow. It should be used to connect, stay in touch easily, share views and not waste time on. We can never be too safe when it comes to the Internet. It's impossible to know everyone you talk to or who reads your public profiles. Be smart. Don't give any information out online that you wouldn't give to a stranger in real life. Indeed, there are many kinds of online social networking dangers. Teenagers need to be fully aware of what type of information can be traced back to their person through simple conversations in a chat room. For instance, telling a virtual stranger that we live in a certain town and attend a certain high school can lead that person straight to our classroom. But there are other types of dangers too. People have been known to have their identity stolen, be stalked by sexual predators or have their photos taken from their online profiles and used in unauthorized ways. People also need to realize that just because they've chatted with someone online, doesn't mean they really know that person. Virtual life must be a complement of our real life and not a dependency of our lives. Although, we didn’t have any partners from the foreign countries involved on the 3 I’s project, this term, I have to mention that our classmates were our biggest helpers as they answered to our questionnaire. Thanks to you we could achieve our objective of getting to know students opinions about social networks.
References Haley Henry, “10 reasons social networking benefits students”(2011), retrieved on 26th April 2012 from: http://www.kstatecollegian.com/edge/10reasons-social-networking-benefits-students-1.2480338#.T5hLDKtul2A Megat Ishak, “The impact of social networking”, retrieved on 28th April 2012 from:http://myconvergence.com.my/main/images/stories/PDF_Folder/jan20 10/MyCon06_50.pdf Elizabeth M. Young, “The disadvantages of social networking” (2010), retrieved on 28th April 2012 from: http://www.helium.com/items/1878218-thedisadvantages-of-social-networking wiseGEEK, “What is Orkut?” (2012), retrieved on 4th May 2012 from: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-orkut.htm Google, “Friendster definition” (2012), retrieved on 4th May 2012 from: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/Friendster.html LinkedIn, “What is LinkedIn?”,(2012), retrieved on 4th May 2012 from: http://learn.linkedin.com/what-is-linkedin/ Flickr, “About Flickr” (2012), retrieved on 6th May 2012 from: http://www.flickr.com/about/ Fotolog, “About fotolog” (2012), retrieved on 6th May 2012 from: http://www.fotolog.com/about/ Twitter, “What is Twiter?” (2012), retrieved on 6th May 2012 from: http://business.twitter.com/en/basics/what-is-twitter/
JosĂŠ Eduardo
Alexandre Moreira
Virtual Thinkers
http://virtualthinkers.webnode.pt/