Essay On Social Media And Social Networks

1199 Words3 Pages

How do Social Networks Influence the Socialization of Young People
In the late 90s, while my country, Georgia, was recovering from civil war, the transportation and communication means were almost paralyzed, and most people had to walk several kilometers in order to visit each other and know the latest news. Now, after 16 years, with rapidly developing Internet technologies, young people have at their disposal a variety of different means of communication. Modern teenagers are significantly different from the teenage generation of the past when the world existed without cellphones, computers and social networks, which now have become the primary means of communication. Surveys show that over the past 10 years, social networks have become an integral part of our lives. According to Taylor Thomas, in Top Ten Reviews;
• 93% of teens ages 12-17 go online
• 65% of teens have their own profile online
• 63% of teen internet users go online every day
• 73% of teens are on a social network
• 37% send messages to friends every day
• The average teen has 201 Facebook friends (Thomas)
These statistics show the impact social media have on youth and on their relationship with the outside world. Social networks significantly change the way of socialization amongst younger generations.
So, what are social networks and for what purpose were they created? “A Social network is a social structure consisting of a group of nodes, which are social objects (people or organizations), and the connections between them” (Wikipedia). Social networks aim at building a community of people with similar interests or activities through the Internet. Thus, the original purpose of the social networks is to provide the opportunity of communication between people...

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Summarizing all the data retrieved from the different sources, social networks become an inseparable attribute of modern society. Many experts are worried that real communication will seem unnecessarily complicated to a generation raised on social networks. However, the fact of the popularity of social networks shows the role and importance of real human social environment and real communication. Just as the invention of the calculator did not kill math, social networks probably will not displace real communication. Despite controversial opinions, how social networking actually influences socialization remains to be seen.
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