Pros and cons of social networking

Social networking is now pervading all over the world. I believe certain advantages and disadvantages can be brought by the surfing of social networking sites (SNSs). For me, I think the best advantage of social networking sites is we are able to keep in touch with our family, friends, classmates and relatives. There are no barriers for us to stay in touch with them. Besides, through the social networking sites, we are able to send, receive messages and upload our picture and video. This will make us easier to know what is happening around the ones we knew and they can also get to see what we up to.

 In addition, with social networking sites, we are not bound by any geographical and cultural differences. We get to meet and know a variety of people whose interests are similar to your own. For example like I love beatboxing, so through Facebook, I am managed to know a lot of friends who love beatboxing too. Through the interaction with them, I am able to learn a lot of new technique of beatboxing. Furthermore, social networking sites allow us to promote our business, services or product online. This will make us gain extra income by this benefit.

However, the disadvantages of social networking sites are exist also. I think the most common disadvantage is wasting time. Every time when we are surfing the social networking sites, we seldom notice the flying of times. Besides, identity theft and fraud is one of the glaring disadvantages of social networking sites. Many people pretend to be someone else and prepare their online profiles with false information, so as to dupe unsuspecting users. So, if we do not know the person face to face then it will be very hard for us to find the real identity. Last disadvantage is scams and harassment. A lot people like online dating but the person we are interacting with might not be as they look in their photos or their personality is not as they described to us. In the end, some cases of online dating resulted in abuse or murder.

As a conclusion, I think social networking sites will bring us a lot of benefits whenever we use these social networking sites wisely.

Cybersociety and Communication

Dear Ms Farah and all my fellow classmates,

In the very first day, DMS students are encouraged to open a Facebook, a Tweeter and a Blogspot account.I found this very interesting and when i went back home, i created MY OWN Facebook, Tweeter and Blogspot accounts. Yeah^^

What is Cybersociety and communication? From what i have found in the dictionary, "Cyber" means computer, electronic brain or electronic computer and "Society" means particular grouping of humanity with shared custom. When we combine these two words into Cybersociety, by my understanding,  i think it means a virtual space where a particular group of humanity who using the computer to share their interest or opinion.By the way, communication means what? when we talk about communication what would come out in your mind? Apart from what we have learned in Mass Comm or Human Comm, by using a very simple example...just like

A: Hey, man. How have you been?

B: Yo, I am fine, dude. What about you?

In this situation, A and B will continue their chit-chatting and hence the communication achieved. Therefore, for this subject, i think we will be more focus on how we interact with others by using the Internet such as MSN, Skype, Facebook,etc. Besides,  learning about the functions of cybersociety and the way of communication in cybersociety will also include in the syllabus.

Lastly, I believe through the guidance of Ms Farah, all DMS students will have a firm understanding of Cybersociety and Communication.

                                                                                                                             Yours sincerely,

                                                                                                                              Huang Chieh