Facebook Public And Private Identity Media Essay

Published Date: 23 Mar 2015

Social networking websites allow Internet users to interact with each other and help build existing, and create new relationships between users. Social networks websites includes a representation of the user by having a profile. In the user's profile, it contains various information such as the user's name, date of birth, location and age. There are many social networking websites such as Face book, My space, Bebo, Hi5 and Twitter which allows internet users to interact with one another. However, recently, social networking websites have made it simply for us to notify the world what we are up to, from doing daily activities to relationship breakups. This therefore makes the user profile to become publicly shown to the entire network. There have been steps taken by social networking websites in order to protect user by creating privacy and security features to keep users safe. Users can make their profile identity private and this allows only close users to view the user profile. It can be said that social networking creates social capital. Social capital is the "Social knowledge and connection that enables people to accomplish their goals and extend their influence," (Giddens, 2009, 817) In this essay, I will be explaining how Face book, My space and YOUTUBE have changed public and private identity from society and how they are influenced by social capital.

Face book is one of the world's largest social networking website .Face book was launched in 2004 at Harvard university by Mark Zuckerberg and currently consist of 500 million active users. Face book is a websites which connects you to friends who are already on face book. It helps you to connect with people who you have lost contact with by using various website tools. For example, tools such as Friends finder. In order to have face book, you must have a profile of identity to show who you are .The whole idea of face book is that it helps you to interact and stay connected with friends over videos, photos and different applications. Face book has a unique way of keeping people connected by in so many ways by allowing friends to Wright on each other's profile wall, viewing who's becomes friends with other friends and by viewing users profile status updates which allows users to see what they are up to. Face book also allows you to build relationships with friends who you know but don't know very well. You can also keep track of events, join groups, network with other friends and purchase products. Face book is grown from being a kid's website to a website where everyone uses it such as businesses, adults, students and celebrities.

Contemporary society as we know it to be encourages networking websites such as Face book, My space and Hi5 because it brings interconnection and connection between people in ways in which it has not seen before. Face book has changed public identity where people use face book in everyday life, at work, school, in business and on their mobile phones. The main difference in today's society is that we are able to communicate in real time ways which include sending face book wall posts, Hi5 messages and texting via mobile phone. This near enough imitates face to face talk. Also, the problems in which people at work find it hard to stay in touch or communicate with other people, social networking sites are a new invention for people to keep in touch with one even in times when they are busy. Social networking websites such as Face book allows the users identity to become public. To make their information public to only the friends who are their friend. However, you can control who sees your information by using your privacy setting which face book has.

Youtube is similar to facebook, it launched in 2005 by three paypal employees.

It's a video sharing website on which users

YouTube is a video-sharing website on which users can upload, share, and view videos, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005.[3]

The company is based in San Bruno, California, and uses Adobe Flash Video technology to display a wide variety of user-generated video content, including movie clips, TV clips, and music videos, as well as amateur content such as video blogging and short original videos. Most of the content on YouTube has been uploaded by individuals, although media corporations including CBS, BBC, Vevo, Hulu and other organizations offer some of their material via the site, as part of the YouTube partnership program.[4]

Unregistered users may watch videos, and registered users may upload an unlimited number of videos. Videos that are considered to contain potentially offensive content are available only to registered users 18 and older. In November 2006, YouTube, LLC was bought by Google Inc. for $1.65 billion, and now operates as a subsidiary of Google.

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http://www.business.illinois.edu/ghoetker/teaching/ba547papers_files/Burt_1997.pdf

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_capital

http://www.dictionary.net/personal+identity

http://4most.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/socialamnesia/