Pros of Social Networking sites:
- With the nature of this business you are contantly in and out of work and contracts are only temporary, very rarely you will get a contract over 12months, this means you will meet a vast amount of people in a short period. These sites enable you to stay intouch with colleagues and family members who otherwise you would loose contact with.
- These sites can help you network professionally and develop in your career. You can access information online such as email addresses, contact info and casting breakdowns.
- Youtube is perfect to promote you and your work. It is a quick and easy way to visually see someone and how they work.Another key point I'd like to make is that with facebook and myspace you can create events and invite a number of people with one click! This event could be anything from a party enabling to network and socialise to a showcase that you might be appearing in.
- I think the biggest and most scary thing about using social networking sites is the growing amount of identity theft. Obviously with these sites you have to share a certain amount of information but how much is in your control.
- Many people will admit that they check their facebook, twitter and myspace on a regular basis but what many do not admit is being addicted to it. I believe if you feel the need to check and update daily you are addicted. I have approached a few friends about this and they deny being addicted even though they log in many times daily they become defensive when I questioned them, this to me sounds like someone who knows it is not right or healthy to spend as much time on these sites as they do.
- I also believe that it takes away a huge amount of communication skills, which are vital if you are to succeed in an interview senario or plain interacting with others.
Some interesting comments about web 2.0. I think there is a real possibility of addiction. There are lots of interesting reports on addiction to interactive games, and examples of people creating on-line avatars that seem to take up more of their time than their physical life. But who is to say they are not their avatar? What do you see as the harm of this 'addiction'?
ReplyDeleteI think what you say about identity thieft is really interesting too. Again developments on the internet brings a new meanings to your 'identity'.
All food for thought
Adesola
I've decided to delve deeper into internet addiction as it is something I am concerned about regarding my own life. I have found some very interesting stuff which I am going to blog about now! There are some real surprising statistics about addictions that could possibly apply to many of us
ReplyDeleteI have also researched online avatars as I wasn't entirely sure what the definition of one was. I gained quite a lot of knowledge on this subject, this could possibly be another idea for a blog!!!
Thanks for the food for thought,
Verity
I think you may find my blog post on the digital stranger relevant to this discussion. I am a slight skeptic about the notion of internet addiction, and I say this mainly because of how pervasive internet usage has become in the operation of our daily lives. I have the internet on permanently, I check email on a 'push' basis meaning it arrives in my inbox as soon as it is sent, I rely on the internet for the production, distribution and feedback on my art. But I am no more addicted to the internet than I may be called a book addict for always having a book in my bag.
ReplyDeleteI do agree that there are cases of obsessive behaviors at the end of a spectrum whereby people become inseparable from role playing games, porn or virtual communications, however I think that line between living your on the internet or living it through the internet is getting greyer and greyer every new piece of social networking that comes along.
I would be interested in your view on when something steps over the line from being used, to perhaps being abused
A really interesting and relevant point, keep it up :)
Ooops, here is the link
ReplyDeletehttp://peterbryant.smegradio.com/?p=60
I suppose you need to define obsessive behaviour. I think obsessive behaviour is when it consumes your thoughts more or less continuously. I suppose keeping a permanent eye on keeping blogs might fall into that category. However I realise that the use of the web is so much a part of our day to day lives that perhaps my definition needs to be re thought. I do however think that people need some balance on their lives and I think this becomes a personal issue rather than me saying this is right and that is wrong. I guess we all need to reflect on our behaviour on a regular basis to see if we are still happy with what we are doing. If we do employ some of the techniques set out in our reading in reflective thinking it should form a useful basis for making chances to the balance of our lives if we feel we are becoming obsessive about a single aspect.
ReplyDeleteOn the point you make about the line between use and abuse I think that the line is a moveable one according to the outcomes which occur. A clear one is an obsession with pornography where use becomes abuse if it creates in the user a compulsion to behave badly. I know this is probably an extreme example and not perhaps very useful. It does however illustrate the point I am trying to make is that use becomes abuse when it results in bad outcomes for other people.