Review on 'Catfish' : Effect of Social Network in Modern Society

            Coming into the dormitory after a day’s hard work, I rush forward to my desk and turn on the laptop. After a minute or two, I click on the Internet Explorer icon, sighing of the thought of various homework and quizzes due tomorrow. After a second or two, a screen pops up. However, the screen doesn’t show familiar Google, Naver, or Yahoo screen. Instead, there comes out a simple blue and white icon. On the right of that icon, red alerts show that I got few notifications to check on. With a sufficient smile on the face, I began to plunge myself into the world of Facebook.

             Just like me, many people nowadays have a close life with Social Network Systems (SNS), similar to one above. In fact, it is so much into our lives; we can’t get along without them. Accordingto the official statistics by Facebook, more than 500 million active users over the world and half of them log in every day. Another SNS called MySpace had over 43.2 million users in 2009. Seeing this, we can’t deny that social network systems have become part of our lives.

             Social networks are on-line, computer-based networks that help building social relationships with people who share same interests. SNSs consist of a profile that represents a user, list of other users with shared interests, and the views of connections from other users. Along with these profiles, SNSs provide users various features such as messaging, leaving comments, notifications photo sharing, etc. to share ideas, events and interests. Through these profiles and features, SNSs are characterized in a way that they allow us to make connections with people who otherwise would not have known.

             Developing through various success and failures, SNSs nowadays show great influence over the whole society. This result is rooted in the basic characteristic of SNSs: egocentric. Unlike online communities that existed before SNSs that focuses on users’ shared interests, SNSs form around the user him/herself. This gave users the feeling of being in the middle of the society and events. With this, SNS users massively increased, empowering SNSs with great influences and effects it has today. Some effectsand influences are positive and essential to us, while some are harmful andmust be improved.

            First, SNSs let us communicate actively with numerous people, integrating more social interaction in our lives. SNSs nowadays, users have ability to comment and respond to statements or comments from other users, initiating communication. These comments are not limited to words and sentences. There can be comments using photos, music, and even videos. By allowing such active feedbacks, users can widen their social interaction with people close to them and with people who are far away but share interests.

             Second, social networking sites enhance mobility of its users. SNSs offer mobility to its users through access of information and communication with others at any time and in any places. Chance of meeting people with the same interests is greatly increased. For example, a user in South Korea can form a connection with a user in San Francisco, sharing the interest of Golden State Warriors. Along with that, users can maintain a constant connection with existing friends and family who might live in places far away.

             Third, social networking sites provide freedom by bringing people together with varying backgrounds who might otherwise never have met. This kind of communication can be possible because of the virtual anonymity of online experience. Anonymity reduces social discomfort and discrimination, or stereotyping of age, disabilities, race, gender, or culture that might have acted as a barrier to join, interact, and communicate with others in real-life. By communicating online, people aren’t concerned by physical differences and focus on a deeper connection, discovering similarities that may have been previously disregarded.

            Fourth, SNSs offer news and information that actually interests and is important to the users. Through the connections between close friends and users with common interests, SNS users can gain information that they need or attain information that interests them. This differentiates SNSs from various portal sites such as Google or Naver, which presents innumerable information and news. However, most of them turn out to be unimportant or useless to people.

            While social network systems prove to be a great help in our lives, SNSs don’t only have positive effects. They definitely have downsides that must be improved. First of all, SNSs are insecure about the users’ privacy. Strange people can take a look at any information in any profiles if they want. This means that users’ home, phone number, school, close friends, etc. are all in danger. This can lead toproblems such as hacking into personal computers and stalking. For one, there was a Facebook user who got his account hacked because of clicking on fake emails. Fake emails stated that “You requested your Facebook account password and the email associated with your account to be changed. This process was initiated by someone correctly answering your security question.” This kind of email could have tricked any user at all.

             Second, users can get addicted to SNSs. As mentioned before, people love the idea of the events forming around him or her. Some people are able to control themselves in those feelings. However, some others aren’t able to resist that and sometimes neglect their duties. For example, teenagers who aren’t able toresist the temptation of SNSs often find themselves with lower grades than they expected. This is also shown in a survey that will be talked about later on.

             Third, SNSs lessen face-to-face interaction in real-world. Through development of social network systems, people now don’t have to meet somewhere outside their homes to talk or discuss. They just have to sit in their couches and chat with each other. This leads to lack of face to face communication with people. However, even though face to face communication can be laborious and annoying, it conveys much more meaning than just chatting. Through signs such as making faces, eye contacts, body language, and etc., face to face communication delivers such emotions and feeling that can’t be said through chatting in SNSs. Severance of face to face communication can cause disability to properly express emotions or understand such gestures and motions.

             With all these negative effects, should we keep using SNSs? Do positive effects overpower negative effects to keep us using SNSs? In my opinion, we should keep making use of SNSs. Actually, it’s not something you can keep. SNSs are way too much into our lives to stop using it. Without SNSs, people of our generation won’t be able to communicate thoroughly, or keep in contact. SNSs are not what we can choose but are what we have to accept. Still, accepting SNSs doesn’t solve its downsides. By accepting, I don’t mean to take it on thoughtlessly. Users will have to continue their use with necessary improvements and supplements.

             What kind of steps can we take to prevent leak of private information? There can be many different solutions. For one, social networking sites can block any personal information from users who are not friends with us. Another solution can be omitting the phase where new users write down their information. However, if we take on the first solutions, users will feel frustrated when they are looking for other users with similar interests. Also, if social networking sites adopt the second solution, there will be no point of the profile at all because it is profile that contains information which introduces the users to other people. In my opinion, social networking sites should respect the autonomy of its users. The users should be the people to choose what they are going to do about their information. Users should be able to select which information they are going to put on their profile and which information they are not. For example, one user can choose to show his name, birth day, and hobbies, but block his address and telephone number. Also, a user can decide to show all her friends only to friends who are close to her. In such ways, users will be responsibility of any leak of personal information in social network systems. What SNSs can do, however, is to strengthen their security program of sites and programs. Even though users decide to block certain information, it can still be seen through hacking. Social network sites programmers will have to prevent that in order to protect its users’ personal information.

             Also, solutions to SNS addiction are necessary. Addiction is a primary reason why people are reluctant to start SNS and it is also a primary reason the users quit SNSs. There can be two kinds of solutions. First, there can be a type of solution where users can act on. These solutions depend on honesty and efforts from the users. For example, we can promise ourselves to only use Facebook 15 minutes a day. Nobody regulates us. Carrying out the promise entirely depends on us. Second, there can be a type of solution where SNSs’ programmers can act on. For example, they can make the sites to go down if some user uses it more than the regulation time. However, no matter what kind of regulations that SNSs provide, there’s only one way to prevent SNS addiction – self-control.

             Solutions to the last problem – the lack of face to face communication – doesn’t come up so easily. SNSs have infiltrated our lives enough to make us stare at iPhones even though people meet in a café or restaurant. In my opinion, this kind of flow is impossible to avoid. Humans have advanced technology to gain more comfort and convenience. Now that people have gained convenience, they won’t let go of it easily. However, face to face communication on SNSs can be suggested. Since it is impossible to pull out the users from SNSs, we will have to pull the necessary interactions into the SNSs. Now that technology have developed greatly, face to face communication such as video chatting is possible. By developing this technology and making it more convenient, we will be able to fill in the lack of face to face communication.