The Role of Social Networking Sites in our Life

Now a day that I am getting busier than ever, I am getting less time for doing two things in particular: spend time on social networking sites, and to read articles which provide me good food-for-thoughts. I am still spending quality time with my near and dear ones, and I do read books regularly; and this brings the equation to some interesting inferences. Is life better with or without social networking sites like Facebook, Orkut, Twitter, or Googleplus? I happened to read two very enticing articles today; one is on the extreme and the other is rather a sane voice:

The first news says, “Internet hacktivist group Anonymous has urged to destroy Facebook on 5th of November”. I thought it would be interesting to read their allegations hence I read through the buzz, and here is something which was agreeable to some extent for most users (IMO): 

“Everything you do on Facebook stays on Facebook regardless of your “privacy” settings, and deleting your account is impossible, even if you “delete” your account, all your personal info stays on Facebook and can be recovered at any time. Changing the privacy settings to make your Facebook account more “private” is also a delusion. Facebook knows more about you than your family.”

“It is not a battle over the future of privacy and publicity. It is a battle for choice and informed consent.”

“Facebook keeps saying that it gives users choices, but that is completely false. It gives users the illusion of and hides the details away from them “for their own good” while they then make millions off of you. When a service is “free,” it really means they’re making money off of you and your information.”

“Think for a while and prepare for a day that will go down in history. November 5 2011, #opfacebook. Engaged.”

Read complete piece: http://www.buzzom.com/2011/08/anonymous-urges-to-destroy-facebook-on-november-5/

Not that I support hacking as a means to achieve some goal, but I do understand their concerns about lack of privacy and denial of choice and consent. The concern is real.

On the other hand, I found a very interesting article on the HBR Blog Network. Whitney Johnson uses most of the social networking sites and she sees the whole thing in a very different perspective:

“According to the jobs-to-be-done framework, whenever we buy something, we are hiring the product or service to do a "job," the job being a problem we want to solve or a way to advance toward a better self. With few exceptions, every job that people want done has emotional, social and functional elements. Let's start with what I presently hire social media to do:

1. Help me find my personal voice and get published.

2. Help me be found professionally.

3. Help me stay in touch with people I like, even though our lives don't currently intersect.

4. Help me expand my network.”

“While technology can hinder progress by making us hyper-connected, distracting us from those we love, and helping us avoid our to-do list, the important job of technology in general, and social media in particular, is to facilitate human connection, to expand our social circles and strengthen our in real life relationships. That's true progress — a job we all want done.”

Read complete piece here: http://blogs.hbr.org/johnson/2011/08/what-job-does-social-media-do.html

While this second article puts up facts and features in supporting the positive role of social (or socio-professional) networking sites, I wonder why we can’t have best of both worlds. Why can’t we do all good things with the social-networking sites, and yet don’t face risks of lack of privacy which websites like Facebook have inherent in them?

I think ideally the power should be in the hands of the users; sites like Facebook should provide us with features that we demand. But in reality I feel the power is still in the hands of the websites and users follow what is offered to them. This is why I feel the arrival of Googleplus (or Google+) is a good sign in my opinion. Given a serious competition, the s/n sites like FB will not have to look at what users really want (or fear), rather than throwing features and apps at the ever-amazed (or addicted) audiences. I believe the competition amongst social-networking sites will try to bring us to a situation where the users’ fears and demands would be genuinely addressed. And then, there won’t be any need for a hacker group to claim righteous-hacking of websites like Facebook, to teach them a lesson.

© Rahul