Nowadays, teenagers (and most of adult people) communicate via social networks. Many of us are familiarized with them, but not everyone knows how to use them or what they are used for.
A virtual community or social network is a website on the internet that brings people together to talk, share ideas and interests or make new friends. This type of collaboration and sharing of data is often referred to as ‘social media’. Unlike traditional media, that is often created by no more than 10 people, social media sites have content that has been created by hundreds or even millions of different people.
The first network, not currently known, was called ‘Six Degrees’. This network was initiated in late 1997, but the server was released in 2001. It is currently one of the networks that have disappeared. It was founded by Andrew Winreich, and developed by the company Macroview. This site gave the users the option to create their profile and friends list. The name was based on the theory that any human being is connected to any other by a maximum of 6 known people. Nowadays, this social network has disappeared due to its low popularity.
Nevertheless, social networks continued to grow and became extremely popular. The most used ones today are: WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. But do we know what they are for?
WhatsApp is a free instant messaging application for mobile phones, to send and receive messages via internet, complementing mail services, instant messaging, short message services or multimedia messaging systems. Using this app (short for APPLICATION), you can even talk to several people at the same by creating groups; and share images, videos and other data. One of its characteristics is that you can send and receive voice messages; this is useful for people that need to say several things and what to avoid writing so much.
Facebook is a social network created by Mark Zuckerberg while studying at Harvard University. His aim was to design a space where students at university could communicate and share content easily through the internet. His project was so ground-breaking that eventually spread to be available for any user on the network.
Twitter is a network where you can send plain text messages of short length with a maximum of 140 characters called tweets, which are displayed in the user's home page. Users can subscribe to other users tweets. This is called ‘following’ and people become ‘followers’. By default, messages are public and can be disseminated privately showing them only to certain followers. Users can tweet from the web service, with external applications, or by short message service (SMS) available in certain countries.
It became even more popular when people started using Hashtags, which are words or phrases that represent conversations the users are having. It is preceded by a # . This trend is now used not only on Twitter, but also on Facebook and Instagram.
Instagram is a social network application for sharing photos and videos. It allows users to apply photo effects like filters, frames, retro and vintage colours; these can be shared in different social networks like Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter.
A distinctive feature of the application is that it gives a square shape to photographs in honor of the Kodak Instamatic and Polaroid cameras, contrasting with the aspect ratio 16:9 currently used by most mobile phone cameras.
However, not all social networks are used properly. There is a lack of control and anonymity and they give access to inappropriate content.
Here are some of the disadvantages that they may present:
- They are dangerous if not properly configured;
- They are addictive;
- They are used by criminals to know the details of their victims.
When these networks are used correctly, they can be very useful to contact old friends or distant relatives; besides, their use allows communication in real time. In addition, the information is continually updated.
Social Networks give us tools to communicate easily and quickly. Nevertheless, if used in a wrong way, they may bring problems. Remember to leave them aside from time to time and never stop talking to ‘real’ people, in real life.
Camila Alcuri, Brenda González, Cibeles Dillon and Bruno García - 3rd Year
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