Week 6

Social networking sites and social network sites ( SNSs).

The first article gives us a close look at definition, history and some studies of social network sites such as Facebook, Myspace and some other popular SNSs. Basically, SNSs is to construct a profile and share a connection between you and others; and finally to view and  spread out your connections with the system of others' sites.the common activities in these SNSs are using profile which includes picture, introduction, quote, biography, video sharing ...or commenting on each other's pages to interact. The idea of SNSs: such as a profitable online dating site Match.com was to help people make better romantic partners on the internet. The idea of internet 8-10 years ago would be very much different with what we think it is nowadays. A lot of people think that internet dating is dangerous because after all, online people could be real or unreal. However, years ago, online dating sites could be trustful and people might think they'd better meet people online with their rich source (profile and pictures) rather than meeting real strangers offline.

The author defines Social networking sites as relationship between strangers through internet websites or the extended social network.This is the case when a person add a person who is absolutely strange to you on the internet but they are in some whatever way connect or interested in one another. Once you are on other people' friendlist, they have an honour to view your profile and "stalk" you as much as they want and as much as you want them to. The queer thing about "friendlist" here is that it does not necessarily mean  friendship, but varied reasons. I myself have facebook. I do not add random people or accept friend requests from random people. I only add strangers who are poets/ writers i really really love and before i add them, i send them a polite message explaining why i want to add them.  I used it as a tool of communication with my friends in my home country, but now i start having some new friends at university the purpose of using facebook is different such as I sometimes use it as a mobile phone, not to call, but to send messages to my friends who are actually addicted to facebook and they are online on facebook mostly 15 hours/ day. I used facebook to post links and share my interests in studying and matters with my friends. By saying friends here, i mean friendship. So actually, to me facebook is very useful and i can make benefits out of it. As an international student and a very demanding person in connection, I feel less lonely and more connected with my friends who are here in Australia or in Vietnam. So I think, this social network site really makes a good sense. I mean, we, users of the internet, choose to use these SNSs as social networking sites or not to. It really depends on your purposes and interests.