For sure, social networks and internet have changed the world to a great extent. Depending on the position and perception of an individual, social media are a great thing or a disaster in the world today. Thus, one can easily attest to the fact that social media has either shrunk our understanding of the world or not. In reality, the effects of social network on our world perception is more beneficial in the somewhere in the middle. However, on my end, I opine that social networks and internet have expanded our understanding of the world (Afuah, 2003). However, as much as there are legitimate reasons about the expansion of the understanding of the world, there are concerns on how detrimental the networks have been on our lives, and the effects are likely to be clearer in future.

Against

Social Interactions

Social networks have expanded our understanding of the whole world and to begin with we have the effects of social network and internet on our interactions. With the invention of social networks, the number of individuals we interact with has increased over time (Kwak et al., 2010). In the recent past, our level of interaction was limited to individuals whom we knew in person, however, at the moment we can easily interact with individuals from different areas globally. This interaction enables us to gain knowledge on certain specific areas and activities of interest. This can easily be explained by the fact that you find an individual with thousands of friends on Facebook (Ellison, Steinfield and Lampe, 2007). Such a large number of individuals give you an opportunity to share ideas and opinions regarding different diverse issues.

Our understanding of issues in the world is expanded by the fact that there is no filter on communication of individuals. In the past, one had to speak to individuals directly for them to get their message passed, or they would get permission first before communicating to a large number of people (DEWING, 2010). For instance, in the past an individual had to write a letter to a newspaper or even pay for television broadcast but at the moment information is freely shared with no barriers and your information need not be censored.

Creativity

With the introduction of social networks and internet, the level of creativity of individuals has increased (Kwak et al., 2010). There has been a rapid uptake of digital content that consequently has opened unprecedented possibilities for users who are considered amateurs to create and distribute content hence rendering the media users’ producers. Often, the creativity is embraced through the original generation of content or remixing of available content (Perry-Smith and Shalley, 2003). Thus, users can boldly share information through platforms such as youtube.com and flickr.com and reach a broader network. The participation of the younger generation in the social media activity has expanded over time and thus they create and share their media in everyday life. Through the social media, sharing of creative content such as blogs, pictures, animations, digital collages and videos have become a significant part of livelihood. In the process, the creation of content and creativity involved has empowered individuals through them developing literacy and technical skills as well (Perry-Smith and Shalley, 2003).

The main predictors of wellbeing have been expanded through the development of a sense of aspiration, personal achievement and self-worth. Through the various social platforms, individuals get an opportunity to explore and experiment on different facets of their identity as well as reinforcing of those identities such as cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Through the exchange and creation of creative content, there has been some sense of community building that has been encouraged. Thus, the creative content is perceived to facilitate a sense of community, belonging and connection that hails from shared past. Collaborative creative content production can then give rise to a more intact sense of connection with others and ultimately give rise to strong communities. With the changes in personality of individuals and community it is automatic that the world perception of doing things also changes and in this case expanded to a greater level.

Individual Identity and Self-Expression

Social networks and internet are increasingly significant for identity of individuals. Through the positive effects on identity of persons, there has been an increased understanding of the world and its activities. Given the ability of the social networks to be customized and be experimented there is a chance for them to grow politically, ethnically, culturally and even realize their social identity. Through the social networks, younger people get the opportunity to work out their identity and status. They acquire knowledge on how to negotiate in public free from any regulation or coercion from other quarters. The processes of socialization presented by the social networks are essential in psychological development at the time when these individuals are consolidating their identities and striving for independence. With the psychological development of an individual, it is no doubt that their understanding of issues will be expanded as well as their comprehension of the world in general (Gackenbach, 2011).

Strengthening Interpersonal Relationships

Through strengthening of interpersonal skills, people get to understand different individuals and the reasons behind the differences. With these reasons in place, the understanding of different concepts in the world is thus expanded. The use of internet especially platforms such as email, instant messaging like WhatsApp, Gmail Chat assists in addressing the gap and obstacles than individuals may face in forming and maintaining positive social relationships. Through the social networks, our perceptions and impacts of long distance on relationships have changes significantly (Heaney and Israel, 2002). The complexities as well as immobility that is involved in the long-term relationships have been addressed. With this our perception on the long distance, relationships have been changed massively. Additionally, through the social networks, self-esteem of individuals gets boosted given their active participation in the different platforms. With the boost in self-esteem the perception of individuals on different issues is improved (Kirsch, 1995).

Understanding of Risks and Security Issues

With the advent of social networks and internet, security has been an important area owing to the increased risks and security issues within which we are exposed. Our understanding of security matters have expanded, and the way we deal with them has changes drastically (Afuah, 2003). Security issues have been presented in the areas of privacy (Van Eecke and Truyens, 2010). The probability of individuals accessing your information has increased over time and even employers go to social sites to get information concerning their employees.

With the use of social media, understanding of security issues have been complex, and individuals have been put under security risks almost every other time they click the button to the media (Gross and Acquisti, 2005). The provision of personal information on the social media sites has complicated issues with numerous individuals ending up in the wrong hands. Thus, the biggest risk of the use of internet turns out to be identity theft. With the stealing of identity, we become reduced and more vulnerable that whatever is ours may not be so after a short period.

For

There are numerous reasons why individuals may choose not to use social media, and one of them is the fact that social media shrinks the understanding of the world. However, this drawback is never evident till one is keen.

With the introduction of social media, the level of proper reading has been reduced. Often individuals read from different online platforms but they do not read exhaustively. In most cases, we get daily feeds from the social media and live by it throughout the day. However, this might not be the right way since we get to lose the right reading skills as well as comprehensive information on certain issues. With increased use of social networks and internet we get shoddy information and lack the real concepts, principles and reasons behind them. Thus, the scope and knowledge of people is reduced thus affecting their general understanding of the world.

Also, from the outer look, it appears as though social networks and internet aids socialization but in the real sense it does not, maybe in theory. This is because, in the social networks people tend to join the networks where they share the same line of thought or ideas. Thus, individuals with different beliefs tend to be excluded from such groups (Castells, 2011). Thus, individuals grow to become less tolerant with other people’s opinion and way of life. Consequently, individuals become more rigid in their beliefs thus lack the general grasp of the earthly knowledge

References

Afuah, A., 2003. Redefining firm boundaries in the face of the internet: are firms really shrinking?. Academy of Management Review, 28(1), 34-53.

Castells, M., 2011. The rise of the network society: The information age: Economy, society, and culture (Vol. 1). John Wiley & Sons.

DEWING, M., 2010.Social media.2, 2. Ottawa, Library of Parliament. Retrivedfrm<http://site.ebrary.com/id/10390763> on 15^thSeptmeber, 2014.

Ellison, N. B., Steinfield, C., and Lampe, C., 2007. The benefits of Facebook “friends:” Social capital and college students’ use of online social network sites. Journal of Computer?Mediated Communication, 12(4), 1143-1168.

Gackenbach, J., 2011. Psychology and the Internet: Intrapersonal, interpersonal, and transpersonal implications. Academic Press.

Gross, R., and Acquisti, A., 2005, November.Information revelation and privacy in online social networks.In Proceedings of the 2005 ACM workshop on Privacy in the electronic society (pp. 71-80).ACM.

Heaney, C. A., and Israel, B. A., 2002.Social networks and social support. Health behavior and health education: Theory, research, and practice, 3, 185-209.

Kirsch, S., 1995.The incredible shrinking world?Technology and the production of space.Environment and Planning D, 13, 529-529.

Kwak, H., et al., 2010, April. What is Twitter, a social network or a news media?. In Proceedings of the 19th international conference on World wide web (pp. 591-600). ACM.

Perry-Smith, J. E., and Shalley, C. E., 2003. The social side of creativity: A static and dynamic social network perspective. Academy of management review, 28(1), 89-106.

Van Eecke, P., and Truyens, M., 2010.Privacy and social networks. Computer Law & Security Review, 26(5),

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