Works Cited Page

. "Social Networking." Procon. Procon.org, 2012. Web. 24 Apr 2012. <http://socialnetworking.procon.org/>. 

Bowean Lolly, Using social media to promote social justice. N.p., 2011. Web. 24 Apr 2012. <http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-01-29/news/ct-met-civil-rights-summit-20110129_1_social-media-social-justice-facebook-page>. 

     Social media has now become more than sites to visit to check up on yours friends and what they are doing. It has now expanded into the realm of social justice. The Facebook application Causes , created by Sean Parker part owner of Facebook, was specifically focused on social justice. Two major functions of The Causes application is it connects people who advocate for specific causes and collect donations for those causes. Now any one who feels strongly about a cause can create a Facebook page for that cause and connect with people world wide for support and facilitate fundraising. The page is not run by some major organization so the page works how ever the creator wants it to run without being told any rules or regulations to follow. The number one charity that has raised the most money is the Aflac Cancer Center and Blood Disorders Service of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta which has raised a staggering $1,173,384 through the use of the application. The application is not always about the number of digits it can obtain but some causes are more to raise awareness. If you are a person that uses self harm as a way to cope with your problems or a heavy drinker wanting to get your life back in order there is something on about every social media site to help. Many pages have been created to treat people with specific problems and to show people that they are not alone. In the real world they may live day by day desperate for help but do not know who to turn to because they are afraid or ashamed. They no longer have to live in fear because they can get support from other people that have the same problem or have over come in before on the social media sites. The suffers can now no longer be suffers and "embraced it and get a lot of echoes" (Bowean Lolly). There have been many modern acts of racism or alleged racism and social media is the place to use to show your support for fighting it and demanding equality.

Social media is appearing in many forms across all mediums in people’s daily life. With the number of site visitors daily now the average Joe along with businesses can reap many benefits. Many of largest social media sites are free of charge and offer so many things. Facebook being free allows anyone from any demographic to create an account and connect with virtually anyone from anywhere in the world. This also allows businesses small and large to advertise to a global audience free of charge. Small family owned companies many not have been able to have a commercial therefore lowering their revenues and ultimately decreasing the longevity of the business. My brother started up phone repair service on the Georgia State University campus last semester and part of gaining a larger client outreach is from social media because that is how many of the clients reach him. Free social media is helping him out tremendously. The simplicity of all the social media sites allows anyone to get on and use their service. Many charities can now be found on social networking sites and contacted on there to extend their helping capacity. My very close friend is in the process of finding a college roommate and she used Facebook to help her refine the search. Who ever came back from the school’s database as a good match she searched up and began looking at the profile along with chatting with them to find out more about them. We have talked about the topic many times and she always tells me that Facebook has made the process much easier for her.

  Social media can be used as a tool for many dishonest reasons. It is very easy for someone to create an account on anyone of the many sites and anonymously send messages or make comments to bully the victim. Also people can have posted on their account something that was not meant for anyone else to see such chat logs or scandalous photos. I have a friend who has been harassed over Facebook by "friends" on his page. They kept making rude remarks based on him being over weight, and if a picture or post has a lot of activity then it gets on all the friend's news feed. Having the things appear on my news feed was how I found out about it occurring. The bullying took its toll on my friend and he deactivated his Facebook account, still not to have activated in yet again. There have been countless instances of a sent photo being leaked on the internet, and the sad part is once it is on there you do not know how many people have seen it or who has saved it. It will be out there in the vast internet forever. For many young teens social websites will be one of the first sites they actively visit and they may not be aware of the responsibilities that come with it. The posts or comments young teens make maybe made with a naive attitude and unaware of the consequences of posting.  Many teens are unaware of the dangers of exposing themselves too much to strangers over the Internet. With some experience and knowledge of computer codes anyone can hack into virtually any one's social media account and obtain information or post anything they feel like. There is no real safety when lurking on the internet. When applying for a job position employers may do a Google search on you so if you have anything inappropriate or even if you leave your account up and someone posts something heinous, the job opportunity could be lost. Due to the constant up to date posts and activity on all the social media sites young teens may develop an addiction. Teens spend an average of nine hours per week on social networking sites ("Procon"). It does not help at all that all the sites have expanded to a mobile version so it can be taken anywhere. Young teens that spend more time online communicating rather than time having face to face communicating will grow to be young adults that do not know how to have a normal conversation. 

     I joined the Facebook revolution my sophomore year of high school. My intention of
joining it was to have a place to connect with my friends outside of school. For the time I have
been using Facebook my intentions have been fulfilled but I also got more than expected out
of the service. I found my cousin from my mom’s side of the family who resides in Singapore.
Since the time when I added him as friend I have been talking to him about life over there and since he has never been to America before I exchanged stories about my life and how things
work in the states. I found out that he is about to graduate from is schooling there and he wants
to fly out to America so I am trying to have him be here in time for my graduation. It is very
refreshing to learn more about my native culture because I have become fully Americanized.
Social media serves abundant purposes in my personal life. Using Facebook I have
strengthened my friendships with friends in the country and out of the country. People are
used to hearing connecting with friends online mostly but social media had leaked over into
my education. Countless times I have used YouTube to learn the day’s math lesson that I have
not caught on to. Last year for the final exam in trigonometry I really had no idea what I was
doing but thanks to a night on YouTube I learned everything on the study guide and ended
up doing well on the final. To now understand macroeconomics I listen to the songs that our
teacher shows us in class on YouTube. In my spare time I read a few forum sites ranging from
cars, blackberry devices, and bodybuilding. I do take caution over what I read but overall I have
learned many things from the sites through members who have more experience than I do.