I think that the most important social effect of technology is the ability to find others with similar interests and then turn those connections into the ability to make something happen. I guess this would be the ability to identify with others within your own offline community or to connect with others in a strictly online community. I like Zuckerberg’s quote about Facebook in the Wired article.
"People already have their friends, acquaintances, and business connections," he explains. "So rather than building new connections, what we are doing is just mapping them out."
I think that some people are not given the opportunity to connect because they do not have access to the internet or are not educated about these opportunities. In this way, it seems like the divide becomes larger. But, computers and access to the internet is becoming so much more common to those that are seeking education, like at the library or school campuses. In my opinion, this helps to shrink the divide. Even though not all of these people have access to the internet at home, it is now possible for them to get access.
I think that it is unfortunate that some people use these communities for ways to find people that are venerable, like children being contacted by child molesters and people giving out their bank information to people in Africa. It's not just good enough to provide internet access to all, there must be some sort of education being taught along with this access.
I also dislike that when it comes down to it, social networks are about making money.
The Wired article states, “For all the excitement, one sobering fact remains: Facebook has yet to prove itself as a business. The site's nearly 40 million active users generate more than a billion pageviews a day, but ad clickthrough rates are low…if Facebook can't prove itself as an advertising venue, the deluge of new applications will slow to a trickle.”
If they're about making money, then there no reason to reach the less fortunate, and I think that the divide will remain, or grow.
1 comment:
I agree with you about the commercial aspects of social networks. I think that companies will need to change their focus when they seek to advertise on social networks. It needs to be less about exposures and more about community associations.
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