The Perils of Human Interaction or the Start of a New Era in Modern Day Social Networking

Human Interaction – The Good Old Days

The community spirit. Everybody knows almost anybody in the community. You walk 100 metres to buy something in the corner shop and you bump into somebody you know along the way. You strike a conversation with that person. Few metres away, Mr. Postman is delivering a letter to the neighbourhood. Ask him if he has letters for you and you will end up talking about football. Inside the shop, Steven the shopkeeper is glad to see you. Asked you why he hasn't seen you for a while. You ended up telling him about your last holiday vacation.

Going back home, you decided to get a haircut. The gentleman with the scissor happily obliged. While doing the rituals, the barber starts talking about politics, his frustrations, his preferences, his views in every issue, big and small. He then proceeded to ask you about your own opinion, while holding the sharp shaving blades in your throat.

Upon reaching home, you reckon you have talked to at least 6 people, some you knew very well, and some barely. This is not counting the people who said 'Hi', 'Hello' and asked 'How are things?'.

To these days, this is still happening in small towns around the country, in every corners of the world. The lure of the hustle and bustle of city living made us decide to abandon this very great custom.
  
The Advent of Web 2.0 Technology

As we pursue our dreams, we look for the place where opportunities abound. So we willingly join the rat race and look for the fast lane that will bring us to where we intended to go. Most often than not, these opportunities are found in big cities and some of the most industrialized places in the world. The result, leaving behind families, friends and fond memories.

But thankfully, there's the so-called Web 2.0 technology.

Web 2.0 is the term given to describe a second generation of the World Wide Web that is focused on the ability for people to collaborate and share information online. Web 2.0 basically refers to the transition from static HTML Web pages to a more dynamic Web that is more organized and is based on serving Web applications to users.

It is a concept that takes the network as a platform for information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web. A Web 2.0 site allows users to interact and collaborate with each other in a social media dialogue as creators (prosumers) of user-generated content in a virtual community, in contrast to websites where users (consumers) are limited to the passive viewing of content that was created for them. Examples of Web 2.0 include social networking sites, blogs, wikis, video sharing sites, hosted services, web applications, mashups and folksonomies.
  
Online Social Networking

Back in the days, I cannot wait for the weekend to come so I can play war games with my friends. Armed with wooden toy guns, which we personally made ourselves, we will split into two groups, occupy different areas in the neighbourhood, and will try to eliminate the opposite group one by one by penetrating the enemy line.

Past forward, I can see that my son is also enjoying playing war games, but this time, he's playing “Call of Duty” with his friends online. While on the other hand, my daughter is updating her profile in Facebook so that her friends (at least 300 of them, and still counting) can see her latest pictures and postings on her wall.

This is a far cry from what I have experienced during my childhood. We have to be physically present in one place to play our favourite games and discuss about interesting stuff.

Times have changed.

Thanks to social networking sites, meeting someone in person has become a thing of the past. "Poking" has become the new handshake. But making friends and renewing old ones is easy. Thus, meeting people and staying connected with classmates and friends, and relatives living abroad is a major benefit of social networking sites.

Of course there are dangers, the same dangers that I have to deal with growing up in a different era and in different settings. Brendesha M. Tynes of University of Illinois, in her article entitled “Internet Safety Gone Wild? - Sacrificing the Educational and Psychosocial Benefits of Online Social Environments”, has this to say:

“Many Internet safety and parenting experts suggest that parents prohibit their teens from social networking sites and other online spaces where predators may lurk. But we may do adolescents a disservice when we curtail their participation in these spaces, because the educational and psychosocial benefits of this type of communication can far outweigh the potential dangers. These benefits include developing cognitive skills that are consistent with those required in educational settings and perspective-taking skills that are necessary for citizenship in an increasingly multiracial society. Alternative strategies for keeping adolescents safe online should build on the increasing technological awareness and sophistication of teens themselves.” - Brendesha M. Tynes

I fully agree.

I was reminded of a quote from naturalist Charles Darwin. He wrote: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change."

I rest my case.