INTRODUCTION
Researchers have argued for a long time that knowledge is an increasingly valuable resource that needs to be shared between people. With the help of the Internet and new communication technologies, this knowledge has become global in reach. Now, we have the ability to communicate with anyone in the world, anytime. Social networks became an essential part of our life.
A social network is a structure consisting of persons usually represented by nodes linked together with social relations, and the wight between two nodes is the communication frequency. Nowadays, things have shifted to new ways of computer-mediated communication (CMC), commonly known as social media, which refers to a group of technologies that allow people to easily post, share, and/or interact with other content creators. This new generation of communication is fostered in such technologies like wikis, RSS feeds, social tagging, innovation challenges, and electronic social networks.
Social Networks made the information publicly visible through online platforms such as Twitter or Facebook, with billions of users sharing content every day. It is becoming harder to monitor the miss-leading feed. Furthermore, a number of researchers have given cause for caution in the use of social networks, with concern over cyber-bullying.
SOCIAL NETWORKS BENEFITS AND DRAWBACKS
Benefits
Social Networks can be very beneficial for business organizations because they pave a new way of interaction with users in order to promote products through online branding. Today, many small businesses have seen the light of success because they engage with their audiences through social media to bring
Traffic to their products. Another advantage is understanding your audience. In fact, these platforms are a gateway to gain more insight and information about consumers, and they are also less expensive than traditional methods like surveys. They can also be used to obtain important data about other business competitors by tracking market structure and consumer opinions. At the same time, users can benefit from social networks by reading reviews of a specific product they are interested in. On the other hand, reviews from consumers can significantly affect business organizations in both negative and positive ways.
Social networks can also be helpful for learning due to the effectiveness of online collaboration that facilitates communication among users. The availability of high-quality content of information transmitted across social networks has created a new learning ecosystem. In fact, these online platforms hold proactive approaches to learning through self-paced and user-designed study contents, a seamless connection between learners and teachers.
Drawbacks
While there are many benefits, social networks have been also blamed for promoting social problems like cyberbullying. Young people nowadays are eager to be popular in their communities. However, they are subject to social media bullying, people can misuse these platforms to share rumors, post videos aimed at destroying people’s reputations, and to blackmail others because teenagers lack sufficient awareness about privacy and their inability to distinguish what must be published and what should not, they often share posts that can get them in trouble. According to a case study, 23% of young people reported that they had been blackmailed and 15% said they already had bullied someone on social networks platforms.
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