Is online social networking good or bad?

What is Social Network?

A Social Network is a website, or network of websites, specifically established to allow end users to communicate directly with each other on topics of mutual interest

In 2009, a slew of news reports warned that social networking sites would ruin our bodies and brains byshortening our attention spans, weakening our immune systems and possibly fostering autism.

Those headlines were largely generated by statements from Susan Greenfield, neuroscientist and former director of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, and British psychologist Aric Sigman.

Greenfield voiced concern that fast-paced social networking habits could change the shape of young people’s developing brains, while Sigman speculated that online social networking, in lieu of face-to-face contact, could lead to poor health.

But genuine, published scientific studies haven't yet validated those claims.

In fact, current research indicates that tweeting, status updating and other social networking activities might actually be good for our psychological well-being, physical health and in-person relationships.

“We’ve found that the more people are engaged with Facebook by any measure, including number of friends, hours on the site or volume of sharing, the better they feel,” said Moira Burke, a researcher at the Human-Computer Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.

Those positive feelings are direct products of social capital, or the informational and emotional support family, friends and acquaintances provide. Extensive research has established that the more social capital people believe they have, the greater sense of well-being they enjoy.

“Our brains haven’t changed, our real world social networks haven’t changed for the most part,” Fowler said. “So the question is how we’ll fit these new technologies in to our real world social networks.”

PROS	CONS
Build Meaningful Relationship The best advantage of social networking sites is that these sites allow you to keep in touch with your friends, classmates and relatives. Here, geographical locations are no barrier to stay in touch.	Scams and Harassment There is a potential for failure of security in both personal and business context. While many sites apply certain measure to keep any of these cases of harassment, cyber-stalking, online scams and identity theft to an absolute minimum you still may never know.
Bring business and opportunities The more people you meet and interact with, the more business opportunities you are likely to come across. You understand one another, and in no time, opportunities arise when one person takes the first step and proposes something.	Security One of the topmost concerns of social networking as it allows you to display your personal information such as name, location and email address. There are some people who always in search in fake identity. If they get all the information about you on the internet, they may use it for bad purposes.
Enables mind sharing and insight While interacting with people online, you get a unique perspective into their lives and their problems. You can help and advise them and in turn , you will receive, feedback and trust. Resulting in mind-sharing.	Bad effect for health Social network can be harmful for health. As it can destroy the young brain. It may increase the cases of deficit-hyperactivity disorder in children. Not only being bad for brains, the long-time social networking is able to have bad effects for the user’s eyes.