Social Networking Sites - Boon Or Bane

This decade saw the rise of lot of social networking sites. Almost everyone I know is hooked to FaceBook, Orkut or Hi5. While social networking sites are fun to use and great to find & keep in touch with your friends, the cases of abuse through social networking sites are rising every day.

What is your take on Social Networking Sites? - Boon or Bane? Why?

PS: You are requested to justify your stand with proper reasoning & use of (real life) examples.

Replies

  • safwan
    safwan
    Facebook i joined as my all friends and teachers and relatives like cusines who live abroad so it can be easy to showoff our picz and to comunicate.as it also provide chatbox like CE.
  • gohm
    gohm
    Bane, I am a member of a couple however rarely use/access them and have seen no real benefit, even from the professional networking sites like linkedin. facebook i joined because my racing club uses it. I get people from high school that connect to be friends then you never actually converse further. Seems to be the importance is the number of contacts, not actually the contacting.
  • swapnakumar
    swapnakumar
    its a bane believe me there are people with worst experiences in their life teenagers especially 18-20 years are more attracted to these sites as they meet different people not really knowing their original characters,habits etc they call their relation as "love"(frank enough) and ruin their life and invite disasters this had happened in reality to a friend of mine so Biggie its absolutely useless and sheer time waste to be aprt of it
  • kashish0711
    kashish0711
    gohm
    Bane, I am a member of a couple however rarely use/access them and have seen no real benefit, even from the professional networking sites like linkedin. facebook i joined because my racing club uses it. I get people from high school that connect to be friends then you never actually converse further. Seems to be the importance is the number of contacts, not actually the contacting.
    Exactly. Happens with me a lot.

    swapnakumar
    its a bane believe me there are people with worst experiences in their life teenagers especially 18-20 years are more attracted to these sites as they meet different people not really knowing their original characters,habits etc they call their relation as "love"(frank enough) and ruin their life and invite disasters this had happened in reality to a friend of mine so Biggie its absolutely useless and sheer time waste to be apart of it
    True.


    Well I tell you my younger brother and sister who are not 18 but have orkut accts, check their orkut acct in like every 2 minutes when they are on PC, even though they receive not more than 1 scrap a day.


    And when not on PC, they would call me and ask me to check their orkut scrap (I hate that type of call).


    I tell you an experience, my younger sister account was duplicated by his classmate, who was just 13 years old and well he didn't do anything big just comments on profile like. "I am stupid girl." lolz. But well this can become big with age and from person to person.


    I see people adding 800 or more friends and being happy about it, I don't understand the need of having huge friend lists. 99% you don't know about, you don't talk to, but you can say they are my friend because they are in my friend list??


    That's the rubbish things SN brings with it. I won't blame the creators, they made these for good purposes, but the people using it need to understand how to use them.


    It is not about just sending shayari's and nice looking pics to people in your friend list with a bulk scrap system. Only call them when needed and respond when they ask with exceptions of special news/events. Otherwise when you don't receive a reply after continuing a conversation just for the sake of continuing, that will hurt you badly and will also affect the relationship no matter what type they are.


    So my reply will be Bane
  • silverscorpion
    silverscorpion
    BANE!!!

    I don't know a worst time killer than these social networking sites.. I tried my hand at it for a brief period, but nothing really useful came out of it. So, I stopped using any of those sites.

    On a general note, engineers generally find such things to be boring, I guess. At least, I do!! ๐Ÿ˜€๐Ÿ˜€
  • kashish0711
    kashish0711
    silverscorpion
    On a general note, engineers generally find such things to be boring, I guess. At least, I do!! ๐Ÿ˜€๐Ÿ˜€
    Lolz don't say like that, or everyone will start thinking that engineers are EMO. lol
  • just2rock
    just2rock
    facebook yah its good one--Boon..orkut is the booon * bane both
  • jhbalaji
    jhbalaji
    Mate it's a great boon to get connected mate...
  • Mihajlo Tom
    Mihajlo Tom
    Here are some social networking sites.

    A tagging based social networking site. Users create accounts and list a number of goals or hopes and these are parsed based on similarity to goals of other users.

    Amitize.com - Amitize is a worldwide friendship network.

    aSmallWorld - aSmallWorld is a private online community designed for individuals who would like to connect, re-connect to share similar thoughts with each other.

    Badoo.Com - Badoo is a dynamic multi-lingual social networking site with innovative photo and video features that allows its users worldwide to gain an instant mass audience and interact both locally and globally.

    Bebo - Bebo is a hugely popular site (especially in the UK), and similar in philosophy to MySpace. It allows users to communicate with their friends in multiple ways including blogging, sending messages and posting pictures.

    Eons - An online gathering place for the elderly; most of the users are over the age of 50 years.

    Facebook.com - Facebook is a social networking phenomenon connection people with their friends, family and other users with similar interests.

    Faceparty - A UK based community social networking website. It started for youngsters but has now risen to popularity among all age groups.

    Flingr - Flingr allows users to connect with all categories of friends โ€“ colleagues, college mates and school buddies.
  • smita89
    smita89
    The only reason such sites are considered a boon is because you can get in touch with old friends and family. In my past three years on orkut, I've never made any new friends through orkut. The only people in my friend list are the people I know. The concept of having 100s of friends on a friend list is frankly idiotic. As Kashish very rightly pointed out, having tons of people on the friend list and yet not knowing 80 to 90% of them.

    The boon part of orkut has been very evident to me because I've managed to find people who I was friends with in class 2 or 3. That has given me pure thrill and happiness to be able to search out such old friends. Moreover, I'm easily in touch with my cousins who live abroad.

    The bane part of such networking sites is PLENTY and can make LONG lists ๐Ÿ˜ For e.g. a few that I can think of right now:

    1. Low privacy: Everything you write is clearly visible for the world to see (and yeah this is despite all the privacy settings). The pictures you post can be copied and edited (if u can't do it with SAVE AS you can do it with print screen).
    And if in case your account gets hacked into (which seems to be the trend of the day), it can lead to various embarrassing situations like the hacker posting slangs and gross messages through your account.

    2. Addiction: The most common problem of all is addiction to such sites. I personally know people who wait for their scrap counts to increase and even COMPETE with each other to see whose scrapbook touches 10000 scraps first. So basically each moment they are online is "devoted" to this activity.

    3. Waste of time: it IS a waste of time. People these days are exploiting the net available to them at work on orkut and such sites (in offices where they can access it). We don't get anything new or informative to learn from such sites (except for certain communities on orkut which are proactive and kick out spammers. Albeit such communities are less than 5% of all on orkut).

    There are many more reasons why such sites are BLAH. I'm sure the next person who posts will point them out ๐Ÿ˜

    For more of my views on social NOTworking sites, see BAJU BAYI LIBBY
  • jhbalaji
    jhbalaji
    smita89
    The only reason such sites are considered a boon is because you can get in touch with old friends and family. In my past three years on orkut, I've never made any new friends through orkut. The only people in my friend list are the people I know. The concept of having 100s of friends on a friend list is frankly idiotic. As Kashish very rightly pointed out, having tons of people on the friend list and yet not knowing 80 to 90% of them.

    The boon part of orkut has been very evident to me because I've managed to find people who I was friends with in class 2 or 3. That has given me pure thrill and happiness to be able to search out such old friends. Moreover, I'm easily in touch with my cousins who live abroad.

    The bane part of such networking sites is PLENTY and can make LONG lists ๐Ÿ˜ For e.g. a few that I can think of right now:

    1. Low privacy: Everything you write is clearly visible for the world to see (and yeah this is despite all the privacy settings). The pictures you post can be copied and edited (if u can't do it with SAVE AS you can do it with print screen).
    And if in case your account gets hacked into (which seems to be the trend of the day), it can lead to various embarrassing situations like the hacker posting slangs and gross messages through your account.

    2. Addiction: The most common problem of all is addiction to such sites. I personally know people who wait for their scrap counts to increase and even COMPETE with each other to see whose scrapbook touches 10000 scraps first. So basically each moment they are online is "devoted" to this activity.

    3. Waste of time: it IS a waste of time. People these days are exploiting the net available to them at work on orkut and such sites (in offices where they can access it). We don't get anything new or informative to learn from such sites (except for certain communities on orkut which are proactive and kick out spammers. Albeit such communities are less than 5% of all on orkut).

    There are many more reasons why such sites are BLAH. I'm sure the next person who posts will point them out ๐Ÿ˜

    For more of my views on social NOTworking sites, see BAJU BAYI LIBBY
    Seems informative one mate..
  • allan.fernandez
    allan.fernandez
    social networking sites are not a bane as long as you are within your limits and not hooked on to them all the time....its a convenient way to keep touch with your family and friends...
  • itchap
    itchap
    I think social networking sites are not bane. But it is the way to keep in touch with friends and family.

    After completing engineering my 2-3 good friends gone to London for doing MS.So now i can only communicate them using orkut and facebook.

    And also these sites are very good for me to keep in touch with my classmates. Mine most of the classmates are on Orkut. Someone is working in Hyderabad,Someone in Channai,And someone in Banglore.

    But still i am in touch with them using orkut.So i think this is a boon for me.

    I think these sites will be bane if and only if you are using it out of limit. And making 100's of friends whom you don't know.

  • mac_mickey005
    mac_mickey005
    In my view social sites are boon at the 95%confidence level and remaining 5% may be said bane.
    because of this one can easily solve his problem or at least can get a plenty ao suggestions.
  • Sahithi Pallavi
    Sahithi Pallavi
    I think the social networking sites are bane..They are waste of time. If we have to chat with our friends or relatives, we may go for yahoo..! Why need to use orkut or facebook..! Even the school children are addicted to orkut. They are checking their scraps every day.




    WINNERS DONT DO DIFFERENT THINGS....THEY DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY...
  • lauca
    lauca
    I think social networking sites became part of our life, I spend a lot of my free and not free time in facebook and some others, and know I'm looking for social news and networking sites, you can learn there like this new #-Link-Snipped-# site that I just found I found great articles but yeah can hape the negative site too so just be carefull.
  • Manish Goyal
    Manish Goyal
    I will say both...boon if we use it in efficient way
    it will help you to interact new people...we will have view of outside people...as i am a boy from a small town near border area..but with help of these sites i can interact people in america...
    and i will also say ....hmm i think it will be more clear to you with incident happens with me
    when i was new on orkut..then one day..i got an scrap from one guy..that i am from your city..please tell me your contact no...
    i give him...
    but when i got call from him..he was a gay......I was so much shocked so much...and then he disturbs me for many months...
    so this is my advice to you ceans

    never give your identity to strangers...
  • Pensu
    Pensu
    In my view the use of these sites depends om yourself.You can chat with a lot of friends at a time.You can also make new friends and improve your networks.

    Okay some wrong incidents happens but this doesn't mean that we should stop using them.Tell me one thing that cant be misused.They are giving us opportunity to be in contact with our friends and families.
  • gohm
    gohm
    Ok, time to stir things up a bit. =) I know I did answer bane originally, however you could easily argue that forums (from car themed ones to engineering ones) are specialized social networking sites. What are your thoughts on that? Would that change your view/answer to the question?
  • sarveshgupta
    sarveshgupta
    I think whether the networking sites relate to social interaction or forums or discussions

    All of them have their benefits till you keep a control of it.

    Say, you want to inform all your school friends to attend a get together. It is so difficult to call or reach everybody personally after so many years. these sites come in handy.

    You have to share some information or display or show off to all your near ones or the world about yourself your photos, videos, likes , dislikes -- these sites help you do that.

    So I think they are useful.
  • rebecca immi
    rebecca immi
    bane.Being a student i thk that these social networking sites are a waste of time.
  • ISHAN TOPRE
    ISHAN TOPRE
    Not using any social platform since last 3 years. No mobile. Only land line. Happy.
  • Kaustubh Katdare
    Kaustubh Katdare
    Issue
    Not using any social platform since last 3 years. No mobile. Only land line. Happy.
    No mobile? Interesting!

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