CA2 Reflection

1. What do you think are the two most influential factors that have contributed to Facebook’s success today? Reflect on the impact (both positive and negative) that Facebook or any other social networking tool has on your daily like in relation to these two factors. For each factor, provide at least one appropriate example to support your answer. (10 marks)

One influential factor for the success of Facebook was the fact that it gave people an avenue to socialise like never before. No longer was there a need to actually be seen with a person or talk to a person regularly to be known as their friend. All you had to do after Facebook was launched was to just request that person to be your friend and you would immediately be seen in that person’s social circle. This totally revolutionised how people socialized and it was of course a great draw in getting people to join Facebook.

Another influential factor was well, news about people. With Facebook, one no longer needed to go around looking for gossip or find out the latest news about everyone. Those people posted up news about themselves on Facebook and what they were doing and basically every single information about themselves. And all these information would be just given to you without even you trying to find out.

Therefore I do feel that these two factors really are the most influential factors in getting people to join Facebook as they really gave people a reason to join Facebook, which caused Facebook to explode in popularity in such a short time. This has all contributed to the success Facebook is today.

I feel that Facebook has had more of a negative than a positive impact on me. In the beginning I felt it really was a good way to socialise and befriend people that I normally wouldn’t have in person, but as the years went by, the purpose of Facebook changed and it no longer was just getting friends. Facebook just became a place to go when I was bored, besides the occasional times when new pictures of an event came up, I would just go surfing there aimlessly.

As for receiving news about other people, I must also admit that Facebook has had that negative impact on me as well. Facebook just somehow wants you to be a busybody and see what other people are doing in their lives, but just like getting more friends, this habit has also been dying down. This because after a while you realise that people’s lives just are not that interesting to pay attention to all the time.

2. The movie focuses a lot on ethical issues and responsible use of social networking tools. Briefly describe any one example of unethical/ irresponsible use of Facebook in the movie and discuss your vies on it. Provide one example of how you can engage an online community ethically on any one social networking tool of your choice. (10 marks)

There was a scene in The Social Network where Mark Zuckerberg was shown to have cheated on his final year exams. He had placed a picture of a piece of work on Facebook under an alias and asked people to comment on it. This allowed him to complete his final year project without having to do anything at all, and with comments from other people instead.

Personally, though I knew doing so was not right, I actually thought it was a really cool and innovative way of using Facebook. It shows how easy it is to cheat in any form of assignment actually, with the help of Facebook. People will willingly give answers and help people cheat without they themselves knowing it.

However this example is of course what can be done if you misuse Facebook. If one were to look at the possibilities that could be harnessed by using Facebook for positive means, there could be loads of possibilities. One idea could be in fact exactly the same concept as the negative one. There could be just interest pages set upon Facebook where a picture related to the page is posted up every week and people would just go and give their comments on it. This would help gather people of similar interests together very quickly and they would then form an online community of that sort. They would share a common topic to talk on and wouldn’t necessarily have to comment on the picture solely, they could also just talk about topics related to it.

To conclude, I feel that Facebook definitely has its positive and negative points, which is quite normal for a social networking site such as this. It’s just how we use it that matters. Facebook would not be very fun if we just used it to increase our social circle. Sometimes we just need to indulge ourselves in some fun though the use of Facebook, even if it is a bit unethical.