Social Networking

Social media can be used to inform people about what a company sells as well as build relationships with their current and potential consumers. It also allows their audience to provide feedback through comments and ratings which the company can use to improve their service or product. A society has many choices for its people. Thus, a benefit of social media to a society is that it can help its businesses differentiate itself and bring in more consumers. The more unique a society is, the more tourists will go there and increase that society's profits. These profits will improve the lives of the people there. 

As mentioned earlier, social media can increase a company's exposure which may lead to more profits. For example, Chicago Tribune's article "Facebook Search: Facebook Adding Search Feature" mentions that Facebook would use users data to provide advertisers with more targeted pools who would potentially be interested in their services or products. Thus, companies would be able to target potential consumers more to increase their market share and revenue. However, there may be a "dark side" here regarding privacy and security concerns. We provide our information on these social media sites to show our friends and family. But there are outsiders who may want this information to harm us. How will we prevent this?

An advantage of these technologies is mentioned in a National Public Radio article called "Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting." It talks about how a recruiter was able to find high-quality candidates on the social networking site called LinkedIn. 

In my opinion, these technologies might evolve into something that will end up hurting our human interaction. We are using social media so much that some people get social anxiety and are now afraid of face-to-face communication. Companies are using our information to show us targeted ads. What effect will this have in our decision-making process in the future? These technologies may become a part of how we live our everyday life.