Assumptions on social networking

In the article, Do problems associated with social networking outweigh the benefits?, both Norah Wei Tang and Elizabeth Anne Wood discuss what they believe to be the effects of social networking on their users. Tang agrees with the idea that social networking is affecting people, especially college students, adversely. She goes on to discuss how it can harm your career using the Michael Phelps scandal as an example. Wood disagrees with the statement, and believes that social networking sites create a perfect outlet for the pursuit of knowledge that wasn’t accessible before the creation of the Internet and these sites.

Despite these two polar opinions on the subject, the two responses do share a common assumption. This assumption is that social networking users, especially college students, spend enormous amounts of their time using social networking sites whether it be twitter, MySpace or Facebook. Although the same assumption is made, Tang says that the time spent on the sites is wasted as it only serves as a distraction. On the other hand Wood emphasizes that the social networking sites can be used in order to follow important people or interesting ideas, and that social networking sites allow for these many things to become easily accessible.