The 21st century obsession Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

The 21st century obsession - Essay Example To underline the importance of the social networks and media, we need to look at the instrumental role they played in the Egyptian revolution earlier this year (Douglas). With integrated features, social networking sites offer different ways to personalize ways in which individual share. However, while the benefits of the social networks cannot be overemphasized, there are many dangers associated with their use. Such dangers bring a conflict arising from the use of too much of these social networks. This danger is akin to the current situation in the country and globally involving an obsession of the nation by these sites. In addition, the danger is further compounded by the conflict in determining the extent to which one should use the social networks. In this regard, this expose elucidates the issues that conflict the use of the social networks while addressing the history behind the social network. According to Boyd and Ellison, social networking sites are web-based platforms that allowed individuals to construct a profile based on the privacy levels they wished to have and create lists based on their interests in order to communicate effectively. Social networking sites draw their history from computer networking (Bold and Ellison). In this regard, early online services such as Usenet and the bulletin boards that we are all aware of were crucial in the efforts to create the social networking sites. However, integration of social networking sites on the World Wide Web earnestly started taking the nature of communities based on the online platforms. In this regard, these platforms were a tool that enabled people to come together and interact through chat rooms. In addition, the platforms allowed the online communities to come together and share information while communicating (Cotriss). From this point, the technology that enabled the current