The Power of Social Networking

Much has been said and written about the dark side of Social Networking. People usually complain how addicted to Facebook they are, how much time they waste on the Internet, how worse their eyesight gets because of that reason and how the virtual world is destroying their real lives.

All these thoughts, partly, may be right. But actually, the prospects of social networking can easily overwhelm all its other sides. In this post, I’m going to underline only one particular benefit of it – how easy, cheap and exiting it is to communicate with people who are far from you through social networks!

It’s been only a week since I’m in Siauliai and as I don’t yet know many people here, it’s utterly important for me to keep in touch with those in my home country. When you are far from them, you miss not only your family and friends, but even those people who used to annoy you before. Communicating with others is one of the hugest sources of happiness in life. You are only happy when you can share this happiness with someone else.

My voluntary project at Šiauliai Didždvaris Gymnasium will be lasting for 7 months. They used to have two or more volunteers for that project before, but this year it happened that I‘m the only one. Every evening, when I‘m all alone at home, I can just sign in Skype and be talking with and watching whoever I miss. Some of my close relatives live in Ukraine, my family is in Georgia and I‘m here in Lithuania. It is just amazing how by a simple click on video conference we can gather again as we used to do it before.

So, I started thinking about how difficult it was for people to go somewhere far from their homes in the past when there was no tools like social networks. There was a time when all people could do was just sitting, writing a letter which could get lost even without getting the destination. In the best case, when the letter had reached the right person, you had to be sitting, waiting for the answer that could take weeks or even more.

Later, you could make phone calls that were more convenient and practical than letters but they were (and still are) too expensive at the same time.

And today, we are lucky to have Facebook, Skype, Tweeter, all other social networks, and it would be so silly not to appreciate them!

Below, I’ll provide several quotes about social networking by the people from all over the world.

Ø  “I think the internet will help bring about world peace. If you have 10 facebook friends in a country, would you feel a bit different about bombing it? The line between "us" and "them" is getting blurry, and for many, it's already disappeared.” Dan O'donnell

 

Ø  “How can you squander even one more day not taking advantage of the greatest shifts of our generation? How dare you settle for less when the world has made it so easy for you to be remarkable?” Seth Godin

Ø  “People live longer today than they ever have. They live happier lives, have more knowledge, more information. All this is the result of communications technology. How is any of that bad?” Tom Clancy

So, make a cup of hot tea or coffee, sit conveniently in your favorite easy-chair and enjoy your social networks!

Lali