Social Networking Boom or Bust? Depends How Old You Are

I get alerts in my e-mail for subjects I’m keeping track of. One particular subject that has absolutely no predictable nature whatsoever is social networking.

One thing is clear however.

Under-18 people that use social networking are portrayed in the media as mindless morons who are literally looking for predators to chop them up into little bits for soup.

Over-18 people that use social networking "in a business way" so to speak are portrayed as forward-thinking why-didn’t-we-do-this-sooner type of folks.

Here’s a few good examples.

SalesForce.com just rolled out some social networking(ish) tools that allow its customers to share data (the kind you want to share) easily, and connect yourself to other business partners more effectively. This would be considered a boom.

From Woodland California, the local council in those parts have decided to ban social networking outright in the Youth Center, claiming it is for the best interest of protecting the young’uns. This would be considered a bust.

Were we to solely pay attention to what mainstream media states:

Social networking is absolutely destroying our youth, and darn it we gotta step in, seize all those computers and make ‘em read a book for once. And get a job. Because they don’t pay taxes. Freeloaders…

Social networking is the best thing since cushioned toilet seats as far as business is concerned. I mean, seriously.. when a business decides to jump on the wagon train for something that’s already been around for a few years, that’s using your noggin. Yep. Way to go, late-comers. You rock.

Now if someone could explain exactly what "social networking" is, that would be nice. But that’s not going to happen because it’s like trying to define what "Web 2.0" is.

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Rixon
It is hilarious. It is not like social networking is bad for minors, just to avoid troubles. We can’t forget that there are few nasty things happened around SN sites. But it is not right to ban minors from SN sites too.It is an age of social networking on mobile and most of them like me access SN sites through mobile. Even I do. Thanks to MoDazzle.
http://modazzle.com/cms/userLogin.html?channel=CM&camp=mobilenetpc
Eoghan Farquhar
My dear old granny taught me long ago “fools names and fools faces are always found in foolish places”. This was her instruction on why graffitti is bad.
Hate to tell you, but this adage applies to a lot of the social networking sites. Is anyone teaching what “decorum” means? Or how about “narcissism”?
Just like cell-phone conversations, a lot of people don’t want to see your mugs pasted everywhere on the internet, we really don’t care to hear or see the noise.