pondelok 9. mája 2011

Teens becoming sexually bolder bacause of Facebook

Teenage Facebook users have easy access to information about sex and to pictures with sexual content. Being an active user of Facebook for a teenager means, Their point of view on sex and their sexual lives is strongly changing and the feeling of shyness and being awkward is fading away.
Tracey Cox, a well known sex and relationships expert said: "On the positive side, it means teens are much better informed about sex and almost all research suggests access to good, non-judgemental information about sex decreases the incidence of pregnancy and Sexually Transmitted Infections”. It might seem useful that the youngsters are being informed about sexual content, but it is important to point out that many information they get from Facebook and from the Internet in general may be false. When a teenager have older friends in friend list on Facebook, he or she tries to be equal with the older ones and postings or photographs they upload in order to feel mature and interesting to other people are very often not appropriate to teenagers age. "There's no doubt that Social Network Communities have had a dramatic impact on teenage sexuality and their access to information about sex."
The fact that teenagers have the access to information with sexual content is no longer something unknown, hence parents should be aware of it and try to educate their offspring about the consequences of premature sexual behavior.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2627672/Teens-becoming-sexually-bolder-because-of-Bebo-Effect.html

nedeľa 8. mája 2011

3 recommended articles to read

The first article describes in detail how social media is changing lives of youth nowadays. Facebook has become so powerful that reached already the number of 500 million active users and even in “closed”societies like Egypt or Tunisia brought huge change to people. An author of this article points out many different changes in lives of individuals that we give credit for to Facebook. Both of these articles describe both negative and positive consequences of Facebook use. These articles are written in an educational form, devided into small sections and gives us a clear picture about Facebook psychological effect. It is important to read these kind of articles, because we should know be aware of negative consequences of this social networking website we use quite a lot. 

 

The Impact of Facebook on Relationships



Facebook has quickly become one of the fastest-growing phenomena globally. It is a similar case like Google earlier and it is being recognized as a new word to be added to the English dictionary. It is a great tool for being connected to people around us, especially those, who live far away and we do not have an opportunity for meeting them often. This social networking website became very popular in recent years, and for many people, logging on Facebook became a daily routine. However, we should realize, that we are humans and meeting friends personally is much more effective and this kind of communication differs from the virtual one. Posting what is new in our lives or what we are actually doing, checking the news feed of our Facebook friends or groups we like, commenting on pictures or postings of friends, or chatting, that is what we spend time on while being connected to Facebook. The impact of Facebook on human relationships is significant and it can jeopardize relationships with people around us.
Facebook makes us care so much about our virtual popularity, and some people are likely to spend hours on this social networking website every day. In many cases, people rather communicate with a number of their friends through chat or messaging at the same time, than meeting them in person.This fact simplifies and distorts communication with our friends. Instead of meeting someone personally, or talking on the phone to him/her we facilitate it to liking someones photo, status or posting short messages on each others walls to create an impression that we are in contact. This kind of communication saves time but limits our personal encounters with people around us. Clive Thompson discusses the issue of Facebook causes sociality to collapse in loose acquaintances in an article “Brave New World of Digital Intimacy” He points out “if you’re reading daily updates from hundreds of people about whom they’re dating and whether they’re happy, it might, some critics worry, spread your emotional energy too thin, leaving less for true intimate relationships”. For some people their Facebook page is almost like their diary, but with the difference that everyone in their friend list is able to see it. People using Facebook heavily create an impression, that they know everything about others lives because they follow friend's wall and everything important is stated or even pictured on their Facebook page. Instead of meeting with people in person to talk about what is new in our lives, showing pictures from holidays, or talking about intimate topics people using Facebook can communicate it through this website with a feeling of knowing everything about everyone in one's friend list. I strongly agree with Sherry Turkle who talks of how the increased social gathering on social networking websites is actually leading to people socialising less in the real world in a book “Alone Together”. She states “people are lacking one of the most vital things because of social networking websites and this is actual face to face interaction”. Despite the invention of these social networking websites like Facebook, people are actually feeling lonelier than ever as they are having less face to face contact than ever before. 

Even though Facebook entertains us and gives us the opportunity to express and present ourselves, it is important to pay more attention to keep relationships in real life, instead of communicating with our friends via Facebook all the time. We as human beings with social needs cannot replace real interaction with people around us with virtual interaction that has spread on Facebook and even if it might make us feel happy, the reality is different.

 

Slovak political party SAS (Sloboda a Solidarita) used Facebook as a main media to communicate with potential voters

Facebook gives an opportunity for a self-presentation. During the political campaign in Slovakia, a Slovak political party SAS (Sloboda a Solidarita) used Facebook as a main media to communicate with potential voters. A deputy of this political party, Martin Poliačik during the election term mentioned about it “It is our official politics”. Members of SAS were acknowledged about the importance and effectiveness of political campaign on Facebook and managed to make an influential campaign on this social networking website. SAS used this communication tool very effectively and they mainly focused on seeking the attention from youth by posting their ideas and goals on their Facebook page.
A significant persuasive component of their campaign was their attempt for decriminalization of Marijuana. This controversial issue made their political party well known and popular, among the youth especially, because this age group represents the most active users of social networking websites. The issue of decriminalizing of Marijuana was not brought up by other political parties during the election period and SAS supported this idea strongly. News postings and advertising of Sloboda a Solidarita were circulating around the internet, especially Facebook and the Facebook page of this political party has reached 84 000 fans. It is questionable though, if the attempt of decriminalization of Marijuana was the only reason that persuaded great number of people to give their votes to this political party.
This attempt for an successful political campaign showed as very effective one, because SAS gained enough votes for getting into the parliament. Facebook gave fans the opportunity to follow news feed of SAS constantly just by logging on at this website and seeing postings on their news feed. Many people shared videos and comments of politics from Sloboda a Solidarita on their Facebook walls and promoting to vote for them, what also made their campaign effective

piatok 6. mája 2011

“The Facebook Revolution”

The revolution in Egypt to demand president Mubarak step down after three decades of authoritarian rule started in Jun 2010 and escalated in January 2011. This revolution, often called “the Facebook revolution” or “the social media revolution” started on Facebook.
Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians signed up for Facebook accounts and started passing on information about planning the protests and requests to join them, on this social networking website. This helped to speed the process along. One of the Facebook events for a protest had about 94 000 people signed up to attend. The main leader of this protest, Wael Ghonim said that he wants to meet Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and thank him for inventing Facebook. Facebook as a company has taken great part to appeal neutral towards this issue due to concerns about authorities shutting down this social networking website in other countries of the world as well.

streda 4. mája 2011

An Introductory Post

Facebook is a social networking website, which launched in February 2004, and by 2011, has more than 500 million active users. Facebook is easy to access, it is free, and it is great help for keeping in touch with people from around the world. In the terms of socializing it is a helpful website, because it entertains people, and also helps to be updated with current news and events. For many people, having a Facebook account means not feeling lonely, it makes it easy to communicate their ideas with online friends, having easy access to friends that are apart and to information about events happening around them. The impact of Facebook on society is significant, and it is important to know how and in what aspects it affect us. My aim of this blog is to point out many other consequences of using a Facebook, about which users of this social networking website should know about to keep themselves knowledge. It is an interesting topic to look up in more detail because it influences all of its users and the whole society.