Founder of Popular Social Networking

Facebook

Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (born May 14, 1984) is an American computer programmer, Internet entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He is best known as one of five co-founders of the social networking website Facebook. As of April 2013, Zuckerberg is the chairman and chief executive of Facebook, Inc. and his personal wealth, as of April 2014, is estimated to be $25.3 billion. Mark Zuckerberg receives a one-dollar salary as CEO of Facebook.

Twitter

Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Biz Stone and Noah Glass and by July 2006 the site was launched. The service rapidly gained worldwide popularity, with 500 million registered users in 2012, who posted 340 million tweets per day. The service also handled 1.6 billion search queries per day. In 2013 Twitter was one of the ten most-visited websites, and has been described as "the SMS of the Internet."

Instagram

Instagram was created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger and launched in October 2010. The service rapidly gained popularity, with over 100 million active users as of April 2012. Instagram is distributed through the Apple App Store, Google Play, and Windows Phone Store. Support was originally available for only the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch; in April 2012, support was added forAndroid camera phones. Third-party Instagram apps are available for Blackberry 10 and Nokia-Symbian Devices. On October 22, 2013, during the Nokia World at Abu Dhabi, UAE, Kevin Systrom has confirmed that official Instagram app for Windows Phone will be available in the coming weeks.

The Impact of Social Network

Using social media Web sites is among the most common activity of today's children and adolescents. Any Web site that allows social interaction is considered a social media site, including social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter; gaming sites and virtual worlds such as Club Penguin, Second Life, and the Sims; video sites such as YouTube; and blogs. Such sites offer today's youth a portal for entertainment and communication and have grown exponentially in recent years. For this reason, it is important that parents become aware of the nature of social media sites, given that not all of them are healthy environments for children and adolescents. Pediatricians are in a unique position to help families understand these sites and to encourage healthy use and urge parents to monitor for potential problems with cyberbullying, “Facebook depression,” sexting, and exposure to inappropriate content.

Cyberbullying and Online Harassment

Cyberbullying is deliberately using digital media to communicate false, embarrassing, or hostile information about another person. It is the most common online risk for all teens and is a peer-to-peer risk.

Although “online harassment” is often used interchangeably with the term “cyberbullying,” it is actually a different entity. Current data suggest that online harassment is not as common as offline harassment, and participation in social networking sites does not put most children at risk of online harassment. On the other hand, cyberbullying is quite common, can occur to any young person online, and can cause profound psychosocial outcomes including depression, anxiety, severe isolation, and, tragically, suicide.

Facebook Depression

Researchers have proposed a new phenomenon called “Facebook depression,” defined as depression that develops when preteens and teens spend a great deal of time on social media sites, such as Facebook, and then begin to exhibit classic symptoms of depression. Acceptance by and contact with peers is an important element of adolescent life. The intensity of the online world is thought to be a factor that may trigger depression in some adolescents. As with offline depression, preadolescents and adolescents who suffer from Facebook depression are at risk for social isolation and sometimes turn to risky Internet sites and blogs for “help” that may promote substance abuse, unsafe sexual practices, or aggressive or self-destructive behaviors.

Sexting

Sexting can be defined as “sending, receiving, or forwarding sexually explicit messages, photographs, or images via cell phone, computer, or other digital devices.” Many of these images become distributed rapidly via cell phones or the Internet. This phenomenon does occur among the teen population; a recent survey revealed that 20% of teens have sent or posted nude or seminude photographs or videos of themselves. Some teens who have engaged in sexting have been threatened or charged with felony child pornography charges, although some states have started characterizing such behaviors as juvenile-law misdemeanors. Additional consequences include school suspension for perpetrators and emotional distress with accompanying mental health conditions for victims. In many circumstances, however, the sexting incident is not shared beyond a small peer group or a couple and is not found to be distressing at all.

The Disadvantages of Social Network

Disadvantages of Social Network

Although Social Networking has many advantages, it also has multiple disadvantages. On a typical day, 70 percent of teens ages 12 to 17 -- 17 million teenagers -- spend from a minute to hours on Facebook, Myspace and other social networking sites, according to The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University.

 

Academic affected

 According to studies, middle school, high school and college students looking at Facebook at least one time during a 15 minute study break made lower grades. In addition, many young Facebook users show more tendencies to be narcissistic. The new research suggests that overuse of media and technology can negatively affect health of children and teens, especially with psychological disorders- making users more likely to experience anxiety and depression

 

 

Identity Theft
Even though social networking sites are a good way to communicate with friends, it's also a way to be targeted for identity theft. Teens are increasingly the victims of this because they are more likely to lack awareness, and have a clean credit history.Here is a video about a man who experienced identity theft and tells his experience about it. 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wiYui0eFug

 

 News Travel Fast
News nowaday spread from one person to multiple within minutes just from social networking. Usually, news getting spread about situations like this is a good thing because people are more aware of what could happen but in this case, there are also disadvantages because rumors could get spread and false information can be put onto Facebook, Twitter etc

 

 Virtual Meeting

According to a recent study of the Meetings and Events Industry, 96% of companies (mostly larger ones) use web meetings or virtual events at least occasionally. Although they are used often, there are some downfalls to it.  For example, many people may argue that even though it saves money, the workers are glued to their desk and it makes them want to travel.  The meetings tend to be even more boring because you aren't even face to face with anyone. Becoming connected with everyone could be a hassle if it is not working properly. The meetings tend to last long and people become bored because they are hard to pay attention to

 

The Advantages of Social Network Sites

Social networking sites are a part of everyday life and they have brought revolutionary changes in communication between people. These sites provide different resources such as email and instant messages in one place. Availability of these resources makes the communication easy and faster. Social network has a lot of good advantage. This are some example of the advantages of social network:-

Guaranteed Meeting Places

When attempting to plan meetings with colleagues or friends, having access to social networking sites expands the available times and places in which meetings can occur. Individuals can meet each other and chat over Facebook, or open a video chat through Google+. Rather than having to travel to specific locations, or try to work times out in which everyone is near a central location, people can plan to meet at times that work for all of their schedules.

Keep in Touch with Family

Keeping in contact with family through the phone or even over email presents a challenge. Instead, social networking sites allow the individual to share their day to day life in a secure but public forum, which family can watch and experience. Facebook, for example, allows people to share events, images, and thoughts in real time, during the course of any day. Family and friends can then experience all the things that someone does, and comment on them. Then, they share in the experience, rather than just being "informed" about them during weekly phone calls.

Professional Networking

For professionals and academics, social networking sites allow users to create networks of like-minded people. Academics find other scholars to share research or ideas, or simply to talk to and "get their name out there." Professionals find mutual friends and possible clients, employers, or business partners. Social networking expands the horizons of what sort of contacts people can make in their professional lives.

Staying Informed About the World

People on social networking sites share what interests them, such as news on current events. People who share those interests, or who just want to stay informed, can read these stories and share them as well. Eventually, these stories make their to users who may have never read them. Since stories are shared through "word of mouth," smaller news outlets such as blogs can get exposure, and social network users are overall connected to a larger pool of new information and opinion.

What is social network??

Alternatively referred to as virtual community or profile site, a social network is a website on the internet that brings people together in a central location to talk, share ideas, and interest or make a new friends. This type of collaboration and sharing of data is often referred to as social media . Unlike traditional media that is often created by no more than 10 people, social media sites contain content that has been created by hundreds or even millions of different people. Below is a small list of some of the biggest social networks used today:-

The concept of social network is when two people could keep in touch when they are staying far away from each other, social networking establishes interconnected Internet communities (sometimes known as personal networks) that help people make contacts that would be good for them to know, but that they would be unlikely to have met otherwise. In general, here's how it works: you join one of the sites and invite people you know to join as well. Those people invite their contacts to join, who in turn invite their contacts to join, and the process repeats for each person. In theory, any individual can make contact through anyone they have a connection to any of the people that person has a connection and so on.