Change technology or technology Changed us?

Introduction
Information technologies have become increasingly important in the human society. Most of the tasks were solved with the aid of computers. Over the past two decades, internet has progressively played an important role of lives of millions of people. They can survive without television or radio, but not without the internet. The Internet has been a source of entertainment, information, and communication to many. Countless numbers of online communities are formed via the internet to the extent where people view online communities as significant as real life comminutes. The hottest trend of how internet website built is social networking website. The business value of these websites can reach billions of dollars, for instance, Facebook. Google is offering 2 billion to buy over the currently most talked about online community websute, Facebook.

Background
I have signed on a couple of social networking website. They provide diverse areas of focus and service .

Facebook
A free social networking website. Facebook‘s ability of allowing users to join groups and add friends, provides them with an avenue to form online committees .Video and photo sharing features provides a platform where users can stay in touch with their friends even if they are not in the same region and keep themselves updated with one another’s’ life. The introduction of add on applications, for example, games and social meeting have dramatically enhanced the sociability of user.

Flickr
Flickr focuses their service on photo sharing where users can upload a number of high quality pictures. Their service is widely uses by bloggers as a photo repository. Flickr allows users to tag their photos which ultimately acts like a keyword or category label, enabling users to search for specific photos with more ease.

Last.Fm
Last Fm is a cool music community website. Music files are shared among users within this website and users have the option to create custom radio stations. Last FM allows users to receive music recommendations from other users who enjoy listening to same of genre of music using a system known as "Audioscrobbler". It is almost possible to locate any song by any artist with the availability of Last Fm’s vast music library base.

Twitter
A very interesting social networking website where users can send updates of their status to the twitter server using device like mobile phones and instant messenger. Users’ friends will be able to receive updates of his status through the web or their mobile phone.

Google calendar
An online application where internet users are able to organize their time schedule as well as share events with their friends and family. The application allows user to upload their schedules and other interesting events online. Built-in tools such as mobile phone notifications and search tool helps to prevent them from missing your pre-plan schedule. It is a very useful online application.

Focus
Social networking websites have significant influence on our lives without people evidently noticing it. The topic that I will be reflecting on primarily deals with how these social networking websites have influences our lifestyles.

Reflection

Facebook
Research has shown that Facebook has 50 million users. The popularity of Facebook does not lie only among teenagers and student. In fact, it is well received from everyone ranging from professionals to new mums. Research has shown that woman make up 57% of those in the 18-34 age group and users are willing to spend an average of 5.3 hours each month on the website. When one has spend so much time dedicated to Facebook, influences are inherent. I have one year of experience with Facebook which I realized that it does have a substantial impact on me.
The Photo sharing and Wall Post applications in facebook have provided a more convenient alternative for me to receive updates on my friends’ lives, some whom may live thousands of miles away from me. I seldom call up my friends nowadays and enter mundane conversations such as “How are you ?” or “How has life been so far?” However, with the ease of Wall application, I am able to leave a message for him/her at my convenience. Another application provided facebook is friend search.

I realised that it has become very common for people to use Facebook as a dating website. Facebook requires users to create a profile of themselves and include information about their marital status, education and work history, as well as photos of themselves.. They then build up a network of friends by searching lists of online members and making contact with people they know. Users have to accept confirmation to be friends before their full details are visible to others. This feature provides an environment where singles have tones of opportunity to meet up with others singles. For instance , I personally made a lot of new friends through this website. The large number of games application in Facebook also enhanced the socializing platform. Users are able to make friends anytime, anyway and enjoy friendly competition with one another through these games application which certainly will enhance relationship with friends. Through Facebook, physical distance among family, friends or even strangers are instantly reduced in matters of minutes or seconds.

Flickr
Flickr is our life photo album. In the past, we use photo albums to store our entire life memories so that we are able to view the pictures once in a while to reminisce about the past. However, life changes with the fast development of social networking websites. We now store most of our photos online. Flickr is specially designed to provide service for user to store and share their photos with friends where they are able to view at their own convenience .Comparing Flickr and other social networking websites such as Facebook and Friendster. Filckr tends to lose out on the fact that they are less interactive and significantly less features for an online social environment. Facebook provides much more applications for user to allow interaction with one another. I don’t usually log on to Flickr because what Flickr provides are just a subset of what are available in Facebook and Friendster. On the other hand, Flirkr is widely use by blogger as a photo repository which makes up to their disadvantage.

Last.Fm
With Last FM , the way we choose, buy and listen to music has gradually changed. More and more groups or individual singers publish their music for free online, which means that we can listen to any music anytime. With the invention of this online music sharing website, we are considerably more exposed to a wide array of music and at a lower or costless way. Our choice for music will no longer be influenced by price tags, record label or where the albums are positioned among the shelf space. This evolvement of listening to music with the radio or CD players to online music file sharing has occurred for a period of time and with this outburst of online music website, this change is going to manifest in the lifestyles of majority of people in coming years.

Twitter
Twitter is a website which I will describe it as an information distribution system. Updates of where the users are, what they are doing can be easily retrievable by their friends. I used it to disseminate and coordinate instructions when organizing events . With the help of twitter, it is easier for me to contact all my friends at one go instead of the old fashioned way of calling them one by one It is possible for users to add links within twitter such that if users have a personal website and seeks to drive traffic for that particular website, all they have to do is to befriend other twitter members and they will be able to locate the links that users have posted on the twitter website. Essentially, all they have to do initially is to create a personal profile on twitter which works in a similar as Facebook.

Google calendar
Google calendar is a very good tool for disseminating your schedule and get updates from friends and colleagues. I used it to update my friends on my weekly schedule, and coordinate lunch, dinner and social events. Indeed, it saved me a lot of time from calling friends individually, which in the past has caused much confusion and anger during the process. Several companies are using this as a means of arranging meetings for their employees. The substantial amount time saved by using Google calendar has attracted many users to sign on to this application especially when time if often viewed extremely precious by many in this modern and fast-moving society.

Conclusion.
With the flourishing of the social networking technology, we are able to perform tasks with less time and effort. We have the ability to receive first hand information about their friends and the people around us just by a click on the browser. The tools provided by all the social networking websites have granted us with so much convenience that we are starting to adapt our lifestyles to suit the change in IT environment. Ironically, computers seem to be taking control over us, when it is supposed to be the other way round. On the surface, we seem to get closer and closer with one another. However, I feel that we are slowly drifting away from one another. I believe that if people relied on social networking and computers to communicate with each other and start taking them for granted, it will unavoidably create unforeseen problems in the future. For example, people will gradually feel uncomfortable while making conversations with others in-person or in the worst case scenario, they lose the ability to adapt or have difficulty in fitting to any social circle. With the fast advancement of the IT technology in the future, there will be no doubt that we will live in a virtual world and we will have serious problems with personal interaction. I feel that there should be always a balance toward all matters. Make full use of the latest technology to our advantage but not rely on it totally.


Reference :

http://www.physorg.com/news84027254.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=512535&in_page_id=1879&in_page_id=1879&expand=true#StartComments


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Lee Yiu Wing