исследовательская работа "Positive trend of social networking"

Lyceum Student Scientific Society

English Language Section

Positive trend of social networking

Fedosov Timofey

Form 6B

Municipal Educational Establishment

“Lyceum №6 named after I.Z. Shuklin”

Guided by:

        Krechetova Marina Nikolaevna        

Gorno-Altaysk

2013

Contents

1. Introduction …………………….……………….….…….…………………………………. 3
2. Social networking architecture..………………………….……………………………4
3. Reasons of popularity………………………… ……………………………………………5
4. Survey……………………………………………..………………………………………………6
5. Conclusion …..………………………………………………....………………………….… 7        
6. Literature ..……………………….………………………………………………………..….  8
7. Supplement

Introduction

Do you use the internet on a regular basis?  If you do, there is a good chance that you have heard of websites like MySpace, FriendFinder, Classmates, or Yahoo! 360.  What do all of these websites have in common?  They are known as social networking websites.  Social networking websites, over the past few years, have rapidly increased in popularity, so much that many concerned parents are getting more worried about the amount of time their children spend in front of their computers. This is the reason why our work is actual.

The main goal of our research work was to find out if social networking is a positive trend or not.

To reach the goal we were:

1. to find out what social networking  is;
2. to study the  reasons of this popularity.;
3. to interview my classmates about their favorite websites;
4. to make a conclusion.

The author used such methods of researching as literature analysis, survey, comparison and generalization.

What is social networking?

Social Networking. . . It's the way the 21st century communicates today. Want to know what it really means?

Social networking is the grouping of individuals into specific groups, like small rural communities or a neighborhood subdivision, if you will.  Although social networking is possible in person, especially in the workplace, universities, and high schools, it is most popular online. The internet is filled with millions of individuals who are looking to meet other people, to gather and share first-hand information and experiences.

When it comes to online social networking, websites are commonly used. These websites are known as social sites. Social networking websites function like an online community of internet users. Getting started with social networking is much the same as starting at a new school. At first, you don't have any friends. But as you join groups, you begin to meet people, and you build a friends list of those with similar interests.

Social networking is based on a certain structure that allow people to both express their individuality and meet people with similar interests. This structure includes having profiles, friends, blog posts, widgets, and usually something unique to that particular social networking website -- such as the ability to 'poke' people on Facebook or high-five someone on Hi5.

Reasons of popularity.

The popularity of social networking sites has rapidly increased over the past few years. Social networks provide many kinds of services and benefits to its users like helping them to connect with new people, share opinions with likeminded people, and stay in touch with old friends and colleagues. Some of the reasons for the popularity of social networking sites are:

Opportunity to Meet New People

Social networking gives people an opportunity to meet new people around the world. Users of these sites have access to millions of profiles from around the world. The introduction of profiles on social networking sites allowed people to know more information about a person before they interact with them.

Social Networking Sites are User-friendly

Popular social networking sites are built in such a way that they are very much user friendly. Most sites are so easy to navigate that they require very less knowledge of the internet. The mobile versions of these social networking sites are even more user friendly allowing lot more number of people to connect through them.

Join Groups that Share your Interests

Most of the popular social networks allow users to create groups. These groups allow likeminded people to share their interests and hobbies. A group acts just as a club whose membership is open to anybody who share similar interests.

They are Free to Use

Most of the highly popular social networking sites like Facebook and Google+ are free which made them open to everybody. These sites mostly make their money through advertisements. Other ways these sites make money is through extra features like games and other applications which should be paid by the users.

Job Market

Professional social networks help people in establishing their brand online. People can post their skills, accomplishments, and previous experience on these networks and make themselves recognized by colleagues, other peer groups, and even potential employers.

Finally, social networking websites focus on meeting new people, especially online, but over recent months, many have started including additional features only available to their online members. Many social networking members can receive their own free webpage, get free access to popular music videos, a free blog, and much more.  Although social networking websites are popular enough to bring in members on their own, these additional features are, in a way, providing internet users with an incentive to join.

The internet has opened up communications across the boundaries of the world. And, social networking has helped people to expand their network, add friends, enhance their careers, make connections, recruit employees, and find people with scarce skills which summarize the reason for their popularity.

Survey

Unfortunately, most kids these days spend hours doing trivial things on the net like chatting, playing online games, or surfing inappropriate web sites.

To learn what the situation among my peers is I conducted a survey. It was completed by 40 children of different ages.

It found that all children are registered in several social networking websites. The websites are VKontakte – 98%, Facebook – 50%, Odnoklassniki – 22%, Twitter – 19%.  Most of them use these sites every day-89%. Kids use them to chat -100%, to listen to music – 69%, to learn the news – 38%, to watch video – 56%, to find new friends – 13%. They spend about three hours a day in the websites on average – 82%, 18% - spend more than 3 hours a day.

63% of interviewers make friends with people they don’t know but only 9% are ready to meet these people in real life. Most kids prefer online communication because it is cheap, fast; it saves time and let them keep in touch with people from other cities.

Conclusion.

So, you see that social networking is mainly positive trend as kids are alert and most of them don’t spend a lot of time in the net. Nevertheless one should be very careful not to become addicted and what’s more to be safe using these social networking websites.

Social Networking is a nice form of entertainment, great for meeting people with similar interests, and can be a very effective business technique for writers, actors, musicians or artists. You are never too old to get involved in social networking!

Literature

1. whatissocialnetworking.com
2. thesocialnetwork-movie.com
3. en.wikipedia.org›wiki/Social_network
4. webtrends.about.com›…socialnetworking…network.htm
5. mashable.com›category/social-networking/