Next New

There are a plethora of ways that social networks can be used and impact society. Such ways can range from sharing family photos with people half way across the world, to playing farmville with strangers across the country. These technologies can also be used to help businesses gain new customers and get valuable feedback on existing products and processes. Social networks have vast benefits that if used properly can lead to great financial gain. These technologies are beneficial to society when everything works as far as the user knows, however, there is definitely a dark side. 

Social networks have capabilities that people do not fully understand. For example, in Facebook Privacy Is So Confusing Even the Zuckerberg Family Photo Isn't Private," there was an instance where Mark Zuckerberg's "supposed to be private" family photo got leaked to the world thanks to someone who was tagged in it being able to see it and share it on the wrong platforms. Such instances can lead to job loss and great social stigma if pictures of people not being politically correct get leaked to job recruiters or managers. 

Also, in  “BBB: New Wave of Phishing Scams Uses Facebook Info for Personalized Spam”, a topic that I have been familiar with for years, social networking has lead to an increase in phishing. Often times, simple people will receive an email from someone posing to be someone else with a fake link, leading to a page where those people will have to put in some private information, such as a bank account or social security number, leading to massive bank fraud and identity theft, all because someone was unaware of who was actually communicating with them via social networking or email. This is due to the fact that scammers can research their targets and see if they would be unsuspecting or uneducated enough to fall for their scams. I feel like soon, technologies will evolve to the point where security will be more of a necessity than ever, because there will be people who target people using new media since eventually, new media will become something that everyone uses.