History in the Making

I was sitting around the other night, just thinking about when people will be learning about history of our day now. When we learn about history there are so many artifacts, physical items, and other random objects we find to put together to figure out history. There have been many diaries found in the past to help us figure out the history of many people and their time periods. Now days, not as many people keep diaries, especially in little journals or notebooks. More people post their feelings or what they are doing online.
What I was thinking was that, maybe someday someone who is a historian will be searching the web and going back to Xanga, Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, and all those social networking sites to research people from different time eras. From the comments and posts they would be able to figure out what the popular trends were, such as clothing, concerts, foods, movies, music, and much more. Also, sites such as Facebook will have an extreme amount of pictures for evidence and a clearer understanding of what it was like “back in our day”.
I am not a history buff by any means, but I do find it interesting to see how much information people will be able to pull from these sites in the future. Who knows, maybe you could be in your grandkids text book someday from what you said or pictures from a social networking site you were on.
Speaking of pictures on these types of sites, and all the pictures parents posts of their kids these days, it would be interesting to see the kids’ reactions when they grow up and see all the embarrassing pictures of themselves online. Also, for them to read the comments that their parent’s friends post on pictures of them.
There is definitely a lot of communicating through these sites and will continue to be as there will become more and more out there in the near future. History is being made each and every day on these sites! So for all of your friends that are the ones who update their status every two hours, they will be the ones that help historians figure out what out time was really like.

Social Networking Taking Over Communication Skills

Social networking is taking over the world. Before Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and many other social networking sites came out, we as a society would gather for block parties and get together with friends that we had not seen for awhile more. Now, we feel more connected to those people through social networking sites, such as the ones listed above. It is not a bad thing that we have the advantage to instantly talk with them more often, but that does put an effect on us getting together with them more often. The fact that we have the advantage at the tip of our fingertips to keep in touch with friends and loved ones is amazing how far we have come with technology, but we need to make sure it does not put a damper on our communication skills.
It is so easy to just post a quick memo on someone’s Facebook wall or send them a message when you need to let them know something or you have a question for them, instead of calling them. In a message or post you are more likely to just get to the point and ask what you want instead of like on the phone. On the phone it is very easy to rack up an hour conversation with someone, when you called to ask one simple question. I feel that on social networking sites, people sometimes do not communicate as much as they did before all these sites came out.
There is a flip side, though I believe too. Such sites as Facebook and others is not always a bad thing. They do let people find long lost friends and relatives and keep in touch with them, which is a great thing. I am guilty of using social networking sites more often than calling people as much. An example would be telling someone happy birthday. I used to call people to tell them that, now I just write it and maybe a little message on their wall. Social networking is great to use as long as it is used in moderation.

facebook issues

Facebook is a social networking site that gives you a way to keep in touch with friends and family. You can also meet new people through it. There are so many opportunities while using facebook, such as joining groups, sharing photos, and even selling items you no longer want. Facebook can be overwhelming at first with all of the different applications so here is a video explaining how to use facebook. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5gtN16gOr8.
The number one thing to remember while using this application is to watch what and how much information you are putting on your site. It is a great tool if used correctly and not taken advantage of by others. Unfortunately, there are creeps out in the world that will “stalk” people if they have a lot of information on their profiles.
Another problem while using facebook is all of the pictures that get posted. This is a big problem with high school and college kids, and also some adults. Obviously, if you do not want a picture of you on facebook doing it, you probably shouldn’t be doing it, such as drinking or drugs. So many people get in trouble by having those types of pictures up. In the job market, you definitely do not want those pictures up while searching for a job. Even if you control who sees your facebook profile. Just like word of mouth gets around so do pictures and other information on from the web.
Kids and adults these days are suing facebook for privacy issues, such as sharing information that they put on their profiles. The web has been around long enough now; that everyone should know that nothing put out on the web is completely safe. So I do not recommend anyone putting their whole life stories in blogs or every move they make on their statuses. In this website, it is an article about the most recent lawsuits against facebook. It is sad that a networking site cannot totally be trusted, but you are the only one who is responsible for putting out your own information. Unless you have others who are trying to blackmail and get you into trouble, then you have a whole different issue to deal with. So just remember, think twice about what you put on your profile!