Before Facebook and all this social networking we do today we communicated through person to person, a phone, or an email. Now we can communicate and share who we are and what we represent as a person throough social networking. When I first started using Facebook it was great because I could stay in touch with all my friends who were at home while I was in college. I used Facebook as a main communication tool on a daily basis and it almost seemed like I was addicted to it. When you set up your Facebook account you have the option of putting your full name, birthdate, where you live, and pretty much everything about you. But, what I and millions of others sometimes fail to realize is that this is our identity. The big issue about these social networks is our privacy and how to protect it. Our identity and lives our open to the whole global network which is a very scary thing. I have changed a lot of settings on my account in the past years to help secure my identity and have thought about getting rid of it totally.
Social networking has definitly changed peoples identities in the fact that it helps people feel important and wanted. It provides a comfortable environment where people can feel safe and known. As Americans we love to know what everybody's else is doing. We want to know where their at, what their doing, and who they actually are. Our digital profile has become a huge part of who we are. I ask myself a question when thinking about this, does our profile on facebook become us or do we become the profile? It's not as easy to answer as I thought.
Facebook has become such a reliant piece of our identity that people have taken it to a whole new level. I've seen people's postings arguing about who cheated and things that others shouldn't hear. A newsfeed can show all of that conversation to a broad audience of people that I know you don't to see. Pictures on facebook have ended relationships, marriages, jobs, and even ruined people's oppurtunities to get a job. Our social networking world has changed tremendously through technology and the internet. I don't think it's the technology that's harming us it's the way we abuse it and use it. The thing is that we can't do anything about it because it's growing at such a rapid pace and will continue to grow throughout the future.
