Social Networking Site: Its Advantages and Disadvantages

Everything has its advantages and its disadvantages. Social networking sites are no exception. We live in a time when technology has reached such heights that no aspect of life is complete without it .Social networking sites are that innovation of technology that makes this huge world of our look small.

Beginning with the advantages of the various social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and various others; these give us a platform to express our thoughts and share it with billions of people out there, know their views and interact with them. No matter how many miles apart it makes us feel close to the ones sitting on the other end of the screen. It makes distance look nothing but just a word. Apart from communication between people it also gives us an opportunity to get various information about the people or celebrities we admire .It makes us feel closer to the ones we idolise. Often it makes us come in contact with long lost friends’ .Social networking sites also are seen as a get away from the daily stressful monotonous life that many lead. A blessing for the man who can’t get frequent holidays to meet his dear ones and whose day starts and ends in front of the computer screen at his workplace. Many people cannot afford to travel the world like others can ,but the pictures shared on social networking sites makes them feel a lot less sad about that. Social networking sites have been the place to discuss issues that are international, national, local and have time and again attracted attention of concerned authorities which is a great advantage.

Moving on to the disadvantage part of the social networking site. First and foremost it makes life so easy that it makes us lazy. Kids these days prefer “chatting” over playing games. They are always glued to their phones and computers socializing .They forget that there is a world beyond. Outdoor games become secondary for these tech savvy kids who trying to cope up with this changing world lose their childhood to some gadgets .Social networking sites as mentioned earlier gives us a platform to express our views ,but often they take a nasty turn and becomes a controversy. Not only that one has to be extremely careful about what he shares and with who he shares cause a few number of times we come across cases or should i say crimes in news channel which have had their initiations on social networking sites .It becomes very easy to access someone’s personal information and use it to the persons disadvantage. It is such case that makes us question the safety of these social networking sites. Also these sites on a number of occasions are used to instigate people on a certain issue as they provide a wide platform and a lot of independence which also makes us question the amount of independence the sites provide and whether there should be some kind of restrictions. Thought these days the social networking sites are coming up with security settings, we on a personal basis should be extremely careful.

So in short, a social networking site has innumerable pros and cons. What is needed is awareness among people about the cons while enjoying the pros of it .And on the part of the social networking sites, they should be more responsible about security issues and protection of information of individual users.

Sohini Majumder

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