CHAPTER1 NETWORKING BASICS ocial networks are present in almost every area of our lives they are all the connections that we form with other people on a daily basis MAKING A MAP Put simply social networks are the relationships that connect people These relationships are defined by our family friends school hobbies work and much more If you tried to sit down and map all these connections you would probably not get very far Social networking websites make the process much easier by mapping them out SoCIAL ExPERIMENT As long ago as 1929 a Hungarian author named Frigyes Karinthy 1887 1938 wrote about communication becoming easier as the modern world progressed In 1961 a U S psychologist named Stanley Milgram 1933 1984 decided to test out Karinthy's idea in a process called six degrees of
Skype NETWORKING BASICS Six DEGREES OF SEPARATION Milgram sent 160 packages to random people in Omaha Nebraska He instructed them to mail the packages to someone with whom they were on first name terms The recipients would do the same with the aim of getting the package to a named person in Boston in the fewest moves possible The average number of mailings was six which led to the idea of six degrees of separation Milgram's experiment showed that there is an increasing degree of interconnectivity in the modern age Social networking sites make it much easier to keep in touch with family and
dIn WHAT IS A SOCIAL NETWORK AND HOW DO USE IT Skype NETWORKING BY NATURE Social networks are important because they provide resources in the form of information relationships and community These combined resources are called social capital ENHANCING SOCIAL CAPITAL Research suggests that social networks enhance social capital They allow users to target people with shared interests Through social media we can establish and maintain relationships with people we might not normally come into contact with Communication is quick and we can talk to different people at once Before the Internet this type of communication was difficult especially between people who lived far apart PRACTICAL TECHNOLOGY People are social animals by nature so the idea of social networking is not new or unusual In a practical sense it helps people keep in touch with family and a wider circle of friends It might also provide quick access to information and ideas enabling users to write a better homework assignment or prepare for an important project for
Linke Skype NETWORKING BASICS logg REAL RELATIONSHIPS Some people argue that online social networks endanger real life relationships Ultimately this could threaten a person's overall social capital It is a good idea to maintain a balance between relationships with people online and in person I Using social networking sites can become a problem if it starts to interfere with your real
