Social networking: Are we moving towards total computer domination?

Wikipedia’s definition of a social-network service is software to build online social networks for communities of people who share interests and activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others.

I have been observing the growth of these social-networking sites over the past few years. There are so many that it’s hard to choose which one to use. The top five, according to Wikipedia, are Windows Live Space — 120-million users, MySpace — 110-million, Habbo — 82-million, Hi5 — 70-million and Facebook, which has 70-million users worldwide.

With close to 300-million people using these sites, does that mean the world is moving towards digitalisation, towards removing human interaction and replacing it with computer interaction? Will it happen that people won’t be going out to meet friends, knowing that their friends reside in their computers and they are just a few mouse clicks away rather than a few kilometres away?

I have read of employers who go into social-networking sites and research information about their prospective employees, looking at the profiles they posted on these sites. Does that mean companies are also moving towards the trend?

In my opinion we will be information geeks, but human interaction will always be there no matter what, because we are human and we have emotions and feelings, which means that once in a while we would like to get away from the machines and meet and chat with people. What some people portray on the web is not what they are like in real life; so, if a company boss wants to hire someone, he or she shouldn’t just look to the web and then reach a conclusion.

Social networking helps form a network of partners and friends across the globe, especially in these times of globalisation.

For companies, social networking can be good, since it can be a medium of advertising where we know what kind of tastes people have and what they like. We could create advertisements for various people by looking at their social-networking trends, and thus follow the right market. It also allows businesses to connect with their counterparts in the same or related fields, which could help promote goods and services. Businesses can also build a network of loyal customers.

Social networks are always available, which means that advertisements posted on their pages have the potential to reach many customers.

I hope to expand on this topic, but for the time being I will say a big hurray to social networking and Web 2.0 for bringing us this invention …