SOCIAL NETWORKING

Social networking has become quite a big deal in our lives. People are constantly using them at home, when they go to school, when they are AT school, or on their way to work. It is a way for people to connect to each other, network, and spread the news quickly.

For example, as a student in Baruch College, students are always taking advantage of event pages on Facebook to promote their club's events. This is how they get the word out on promoting events like, meeting the CEO of burger chain, Bareburger, the Big 4 accounting firms, open-mic events, and even cultural events like the Lunar New Year festival.

Other than for promoting events, and updating friends about our feelings and thoughts of the day, social networking contributes greatly to the job market. Places like LinkedIn serve as a networking site for people to showcase their skills and specialties towards their career, "One of Crawford-Hentz's favorite sites is LinkedIn, a network of 8 million professionals spread across the world. Linkedin says users include executives from all of the Fortune 500 companies. Typing keywords into a search engine, Crawford can scrape the entire network to dig out high-quality candidates that she can't find elsewhere." (Langfitt, 2006) LinkedIn allows employers to easily look for suitable employees and offer them a job.

Furthermore, privacy will always become an issue in social media. As many may have heard in the news, nude photos of celebrities are always being leaked and spread on the internet. One example of a private photo being leaked would be the sister of Facebook's founder, Randi Zuckerberg who posted a family photo from Christmas onto her Facebook. However, a fan of her re-posted that photo onto Twitter, cause Randi to tell her to take it down because it is a private photo. Apparently she only posted that for her friends only, but it does not mean that friends of friends cannot see the tagged photo. She would have to create a customized list so that friends of friends can not see her photos. It has come to a conclusion that even a family member of the Zuckerbergs  would be confused and not aware of Facebook privacy settings that has to be changed so others can not peak into their private life. (Greenfield, 2012) Thus, the truth is that once a photo is on the internet, it can always be shared and re-shared across the net for the world to see.

A way to expand on social media is that professors or teachers can add their students to a LinkedIn group and post up interesting and helpful tips for students to explore and learn from. These students don't have to be in just one class, but students from all classes so they can contribute in sharing ideas. This way students can be pushed to be more involved in a social network solely for job hunting and discovering career paths, while being continuously mentored at the same time. 

Greenfield, Rebecca. "Facebook Privacy Is So Confusing Even the Zuckerberg Family Photo Isn't Private." The Wire. The Wire, 26 Dec. 2012. Web. 06 Mar. 2015. <http://www.thewire.com/technology/2012/12/facebook-privacy-so-confusing-even-zuckerberg-family-photo-isnt-private/60313/>.

Langfitt, Frank. "Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting." WBUR - Boston's NPR News Station. WBUR - Boston's NPR News Station, 22 Nov. 2006. Web. 10 Mar. 2015. <http://www.wbur.org/npr/6522523>.