Social Growth Of The
Internet
Social Networking Sites
Social Networking has revolutionised the internet. With the
emergence of websites like Twitter and Facebook the internet has changed for
good.
Even though these sites may not last forever, social
networking is something that will be around for a long time.
An early form of social networking sites are forums. These,
like any other type of social networking platform allow people with similar
common interests to communicate with each other.
Facebook
Since its year of release Facebook has dramatically changed
the internet. Now the web isn’t filled with millions of anonymous people, it is
instead filled with friends, friends of friends and a host of different groups.
There are 3 main ways in which Facebook has changed the internet.
1.
Finding People
You can easily search for people on Facebook. When you type
in their name you can search through a list of people that all have the same
name as the person you’re looking for. By using profile pictures you can easily
find the correct person you are searching for.
If you were trying to use a search engine to find your
friend then you would end up sifting through thousands of pages that could only
have some small reference to somebody with the same name. This is not an
efficient method.
2.
Privacy
We post a lot of pictures on sites like Facebook. Anything
from nights out to days at school
Facebook however, allows privacy settings to be applied to
your account. These settings allow you to determine who accesses the
information, so you can confine things to be seen by only friends, friends of
friends or by the whole internet.
However one of the biggest issues of Facebook is their view
on privacy. In the past few years, there have been times where the privacy of
members has been compromised and all of their information has been on show for
the whole internet. This has been seen not too long ago when you could report
Mark Zuckerberg’s profile picture and access his private photos.
3.
Connections
Many different websites have links to Facebook. Most of
these being a like button on a particular article or picture. You can look at
thousands of websites and see how many people have liked the article including
your friends.
These likes then contribute towards your Facebook profile
where your friends can see the articles or images you have liked recently.
Twitter
Twitter has a major community following it because it can be
accessed through almost any connectable device which makes it is easy to use
and follow with just basic functions from technologies.
The way in which
twitter has been made successful is that it connects ordinary people like you
and me to celebrities and anyone else using the follower system. This is
interesting in the eyes of 1.6 billion people following them each day.
Socially, Twitter has had a large impact on the internet
because of the huge member base that it has gained since its release. Many
celebrities use twitter as a way of sharing what they are doing with their
fans. Due to this it gives the opportunity for stars to communicate with absolutely
anyone.
YouTube
YouTube’s slogan “Broadcast Yourself” has been one of the
most successful catchphrases because it’s exactly what people did.
YouTube has a massive fan base and has had a huge impact on
the way we receive and distribute information between ourselves. Over the years
it has maintained its spot as the largest video sharing website since it was
founded in 2005.
The thing that makes
YouTube great is the features that it offers. It allows anyone and everyone to
upload whatever they want as long as it is within the guidelines set. This has
changed how people use the internet for their social life, because many users
have channels dedicated to Vlogging. These people frequently post videos that
share their opinion about current events and interests. Vlogging has also seen
an increase in viewers because of social networking sites where links can be
posted.
YouTube has helped
the music industry by spreading artists work instantly across the world and making
stars such as Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga. The music industry has definitely
seen a rise in the popularity of music since Vevo was introduced with people
now listening to a larger variety of music. YouTube has inspired an active
audience, we don’t just read about the news but people now post videos
portraying their opinions through a variety of video genres.
Between 2008 and 2011 millions of videos have been uploaded
in many different categories, here are some figures since launch.
• Total number of YouTube videos -- over 120 million
• Number of videos uploaded per day -- about 200 thousand
• Time required to see all the videos -- over 600 years
• Number of videos watched
daily -- over 3 billion
• Amount of content uploaded every minute -- 48 hours
• Number of accounts on YouTube -- over 300 million and
rising
Skype
Skype was launched in 2003 and is a type of Voice over
Internet Protocol software. It allows people to make free or very cheap phone
calls around the world.
Skype is a totally free piece of software so it now boasts
the largest number of users in the VOIP arena, and there are 663 million people
registered as of September 2011.
Not only can people call their friends and relatives for
free, but they can video call them which gives the whole process a more
personal feel and makes it more desirable for an older generation to talk to
family.
Skype and all other
VOIP software have helped to develop the internet socially because they allow
anyone to talk to everyone with no limitations. You can call about business, to
have a chat with a friend, or even hold a group conversation. VOIP has made its
way into many different parts of the internet and is a great piece of software
for social interaction.
Email
Email has been one of the largest contributors towards the
social growth of the internet since it was invented in 1973. Over the years it
has been upgraded to the services that we have today. Emails allow people to
send messages anywhere in the world instantly and with very little cost.
When Email was first
introduced we were only able to send simple text based messages to each other.
However we are now able to do so much more with the technology than we used to
be able to. We are now able to attach files, and even use basic formatting
features to make our emails look better.
Socially, Emails
have changed the internet because of the things that they can do. We can now
easily share news articles with each other, forward messages containing useful
information and even write to pen pals without needing pen and paper.
Online Gaming
One of the biggest growths of the internet for social use is
online gaming through the three major institutions Nintendo, Sony and
Microsoft. The games designers had a
vision of people playing games with each other from across the world and
communicating as they did so.
The demand for
online gaming is massive, currently Xbox Live has 20 Million users alone and
PlayStation Network has 17 million.
A lot of games currently offer co-operative play and it is
now modern to give the option of team playing over the internet. You can group
up with friends to be up against other people from around the world, or join a
team of random people.
Online gaming has
had a great social impact because many people make friends with those they meet
and can play with them regularly. However, online gaming is very anonymous and
people can hide behind their screen name which generally makes this type of the
social internet to be a very verbally abusive place.
Overall we
think that these contributors have increased the use of the internet in massive
numbers due to the social aspects that they bring. There has been a huge
increase in the number of different ways in which we can interact over the
internet and this can be seen in everyday life.