Social Networking (Week 8 #18)

I have ridden the back slopes of the social networking phenomenon as my children have grown. Both have moved on from MySpace to FaceBook now. I have seen how integral social networking is to communication between young people especially. I watched more closely over my daughter's shoulder than over my son's. Yup...the ever protective dad! No...she rarely appreciated me looking over her shoulder! I have to say that she proved herself to be a responsible social networker pretty much ignoring comment and efforts to engage her by people she doesn't know. I have been impressed by the creativity and maturity I've seen in a lot of the profiles and posts. On many levels I think social networking is a great thing. However, the issues of internet safety are ever present.

I don't see as much value in social networking in a professional environment as I have seen on some of the other resources we've looked at. In my view the content would be of a much more casual nature.