Okay so this entry is going to talk about the virtual world as the title suggests. The virtual world being the likes of social networking sites, facebook in particular because I use this the most.
I personally think Facebook is a godsend but at the same time a gathering for drama. Its amazing that you can basically store your life in memories via photo albums, messaging, instant messaging and your status updates. When Im 50 years old I will be able to look back on photos from when I was as young as 16. I often think about this, when Im 50 will I still use facebook?, the answer is probably yes. Just for the memories, although the sad thing is many people will come and go in that time. But I should think the majority of my friends on there will still use it throughout adulthood. Hey my nan even wants one.
This may sound sad, but I feel sorry for the older generation who will never really get to experience and appreciate how great facebook is, my nan wants one to contact me if she needs to, but she wont have friends on her account from her childhood or photos from when shes maybe had a few too many to drink. My generation and below will have the opportunity to do all of this and stay in touch with people throughout thier entire lifetime. So in terms of memory value and convenience I think facebook is brilliant.
However of course there are some obvious downsides to the social networking site. Facebook seems to be the hub for drama, unless you set things to private or youre very good at holding your tongue (Not letting your fingers type away), then unfortunately your life and everything in it is pretty much common knowledge. The amount of time Ive seen peoples relationship status' change .... is in a relationship with.... *2 days later* .... is now single. At which point people like to butt in and give thier two pence worth of what they think.
So many arguments are caused by facebook. When something is typed it can easily be mis-read or mis-interpreted. The private messaging/chat can be the cause of alot of arguments between couples or people in general, and your wall is public everything can be seen, but behind the wall where the private messaging takes place, suspicious minds start ticking. It creates alot of jealousy and animosity.
There are other reasons asto why Facebook and other social networking sites can be bad. Its all virtual and online you as a human being aren't interacting properly with another human being, social skills can often be affected by such websites as people are spending more and more time typing to each other online than they are speaking to someone in reality. Another downside is identity generally speaking on facebook the person is who they say they are, you can tell this more often than not from the amount of friends someone has, whether they are tagged in pictures and other factors. However on some websites such as dating websites or other networks, there are great big handfuls of FAKE people, by fake I mean they arent who they say they are. Of course it is a real person at the other side of the screen, but that 6ft dark haired guy may infact be some old, overweight man eating cheesy puffs on his sofa. (No disrespect intended). You have to be very aware and alert online, there are bad people out there.
My tips in spotting fake people would have to be things such as a small amount of pictures 2 or 3, if they are too in your face or open about certain things, and if they say things such as NO FACEBOOK, NO NUMBER, NO SKYPE, NO CAM. Then yeah they are probably fake Im afraid :), tbh just go with gut instincts because Im a stong believer that if you think something about someone or a situation, you will more than likely be correct :).
WOW that was a long post but Im sure you all agree with what has been said, if not speak up, and happy surfing :D
