The Disadvantages of Social Networks
Disadvantages
Ethical and Legal Issues
The main concern about the growing popular social networking sites is privacy. Now that a person's profile is a part of the public domain, the privacy of each individual is compromised. Pictures or words can be found and used to hurt someone or convey hate. There are legal and ethical complications with using social networking. A very interesting example would be within the medical profession.
There are serious legal violations that occur on social networking sites through the pictures medical staff post. They incorporate images of patients or would be patients who compromise patient privacy protection that is outlined in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act or HIPAA (Black,Black,Dawson,Duff,Saliba,&Thompson 2011).
This is just one serious legal and ethical problem that faces social networking. There have been many issues that have risen after the development of social networking that include privacy of user on the public internet and the legal right of ownership of user generated content. Many legal challenges have come about based on website practices which challenge the ethical issues the social networking faces. Over time the social networks adapt to the legal and ethical violations to retain the user base.
Security Risks
As with the ethical and legal implications of social networking are clearly prevalent, so are the various security concerns with using the social networks. Privacy is yet again the main concern. Information is given to the supposedly trusted companies such as Facebook and MySpace, holding very sensitive data on their servers and databases. This information is not centralized nor is it guaranteed to be physically secured on the premises where the information is kept. Such information can be used to harm the users via identity fraud, intimidation tactics, or even threats on one's life. The user generated content can inadvertently lead to security risks through giving too much public data. For example using the social networking site twitter, a user updates the status of their daily activities via mobile accounts or various locations. These locations are often broadcasted within the status update, giving a person with harmful intentions the information needed to figure out whether or not a target is at home or any other place of interest (Albrechtslund 2008).
Social Problems
According to Hennessey, "Facebook depression" can occur when people spend too much time on the social networking sites. The people who spend excessive periods of time on these sites compare their social value with others based on number of friends, relationships, or how close friends are to others. This kind of behavior is unhealthy to the individual and compromises a healthy social interaction.
Another major aspect of the social issues associated with social networking websites is the new form of harassment amongst the teen population in particular, cyber bullying. Cyber bullying is an ever growing concern within schools and at home. It is easy for other teens to contribute to cyber attacks based on the disassociation with the physical target. (Hennessey 2011). There have been several cases of teen suicide that have been linked to various forms of cyber bullying, creating a significant public demand for action against the harassment.
The third significant social problem that stems from social networking is the degradation of physical social skills. So many people sit behind their profiles and socialize behind a web interface and when it comes to personal interactions in person, the person lacks the social skills to develop a relationship in person and feels uncomfortable (Hennessey 2011).
