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Social networking has become a powerful force in our lives in the past three years. I can still remember when Facebook was just a tool for college kids to find other college students, and MySpace was an obscure site that was known by few. As Facebook and MySpace became the dominant leaders in the social networking field, other sites sprung up to fill the niche role that was left void by the two networking giants.

What happens now that social networking is not only a prefered way to spend time, but almost engrained into our culture? There will be several long term ramifications of the social networking revolution, and only time will tell how much society will be impacted. These sites have already revolutionized our culture, and the way that we view our relationships with people.

The line between public and private has become blurred to a degree. Private photos are now being displayed to anyone who is a friend on a networking site. Facebook has set up a new status feed format, where basically everything that everyone does is shared to the world. Any photos, thoughts, wall posts, and other information are displayed for anyone who is a friend of yours, or anyone who is a friend of a friend.

Our relationships with others may become blurred as well. As people grow virtual friend lists to thousands, or millions, where do we draw the line between friend and virtual acquaintance? I doubt that most people consider many people on friend lists to be actual friends, but it seems that a lot of people meet, or relationships start as a friend of a friend become friends with each other. It is almost like a virtual bar, where you can meet anyone you want, but you are more free to reject an advance.

Social networking sites may actually make us less social. Instead of spending time with people, we spend more time talking on Facebook chat, or just looking at photos, and wasting time on-line. We become enamored with what other people are doing, and start doing less ourselves, being sucked into the virtual world that social networking has become.

Networking sites have made our lives more accessible to others, and seedy characters can become involved in our lives without us knowing. Stalkers, and child predators may take advantage of the fact that some kids who are barely in high school share everything about their lives, and some photos, and wall posts are very provocative. While these kids may think they are just posting photos to friends, or to be shocking, you never know who could be watching.

Social networking will make us less active, less motivated to do other things, and more involved in being nosy. I think Facebook goes way too far, and other sites make all the details of everyone's lives much more accessible. You need to be careful of what you put on a social networking site, and make sure you know who you are talking too. These sites can be a lot of fun, but they can have other effects too, so be ware of spending too much time on them.

Learn more about this author, Cody Hodge.
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