We express what social networks definitions are and how they are classified. In addition, its history, its advantages, criticisms and more negative aspects.
Social networks are Internet sites formed by communities of individuals with common interests or activities (such as friendship , kinship, work) and that allow contact between them, in order to communicate and exchange information.
Individuals do not necessarily have to know each other before coming into contact through a social network, but they can do so through it, and that is one of the greatest benefits of virtual communities.
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Types of social media
If you wanted to classify social networks, it could be done according to their origin and function:
Generic networks
They are very numerous and popular (like Facebook or Twitter).
Professional networks
Like LinkedIn, which involve individuals who share the work environment or who seek to expand their labor boundaries and can be open or closed.
Thematic networks
They relate people with specific interests in common, such as music, hobbies, sports , etc., being the most famous Flickr (theme: photography ).
In general, entering a social network is very simple , since it simply involves filling out a questionnaire with basic personal data and thus obtaining a Username and Password, which will help the user to enter the network privately. As long as the user meets the requirements for registration on said network (eg, of legal age), he may do so without inconvenience.
The origin of social networks is quite recent, it can be said that they arise in 1995 with the creation of classmates.com , at the hands of the American Randy Conrads. This social network sought to gather former classmates, or universities.
Then, seeing that the project was successful, new networks began to appear that sought to gather friends , and by 2003, sites such as LinkedIn and MySpace had already become popular, with more specific objectives .
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The story behind Facebook and Twitter
Some of the most used social networks today are Facebook and Twitter.
It was created around 2004 by a group of students led by Mark Zuckerberg, with the aim of keeping students at Harvard University (USA) in touch. However, the short time any person with an account email could join. Thus, Facebook began to gain popularity in the student environment, and then expand its target. The translation of the network into several languages allowed its worldwide expansion. Today this social network has more than 1000 million users.
It was created shortly after Facebook, around 2006 and is a social network that allows publishing medium-short texts (140 characters), which are popularly known as “tweets” and that appear on the main page of the user who publishes them. In this way, each individual subscribed to said network, can choose to “follow” other users, and thus view the content of their publications.
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Negatives
Although the use of social networks has many benefits, such as contacting people who are far away, meeting new people, promoting the participation of teamwork , sharing files in a simple way (documents, music, photographs, among others) ), there is also a negative aspect of these, which lies in the lack of privacy , since each file or publication of users can fall into the hands of people with dark ends.
Another risky aspect is the indiscriminate access to sensitive content (for example, sexual or violent), which is often inappropriate especially for vulnerable social groups, such as children. This is evidenced in many cases to cases of harassment, such as adults seeking to contact children or vulnerable people; or by acquaintances, such as schoolmates looking to make fun of others. All this is favored by the fact that teenagers and young people are the main user group of social networks.
