What effect does Social Computing have on Society?

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Social computing is a fast emerging popular system of communication. At one time there seemed to be a generational gap, but today it seems that regardless of age, young or old, communication through some form of social communication seems to be the norm. "In a 2006, Forrester Research found that although social computing is in infancy societal changes are being witnessed, as individuals increasingly take cues from one another, in additional to traditional sources of authority such as corporations media, political institutions and religions." (Vannov & Palvia. 2010 p. 10).

Blogs. e-Bay-esque, Websites, Web-based forums such as MySpace.com, text messaging, instant messaging and Facebook are extremely popular in today's society. Interestingly enough there was no mention of Facebook.com in the 2010 article listed above. Facebook.com is one of the largest social networking sites in existance worldwide. Brad Stone, a publisher for the New York Times stated that Facebook "is signing up nearly a million new members a day, and now more than 70 percent of the service's members live overseas, in countries like Italy, the Czech Republic and Indonesia." Even government agencies have found the necessity of Facebook and many now allow employees to network through Facebook at work as a means to bring employees and the outside world together. Additionally, many agencies have gone so far as to create corporate Facebook pages. The Veterans Administration and the military recently opened the Facebook realm as a means to allow employees/members to find information they may otherwise find too cumbersome to locate.

There may be a downside to the increased acceptance of social computing as the government has issued fears that "planned Internet threatens GPS" (Tessler, J., 2011 B5). This may seem silly at first glance however reading further into the article one begins to understand these fears. The threat is the new "ultra fast wireless Internet networks". "The problem stems from a recent government decision to let a Virginia company called LightSquared build a nationwide broadband network using airwaves next to those used for GPS". "One of the biggest risks is to the GPS navigation systems used by about 40 percent of commercial and private planes." (Tessler, J. 2011 p.B5). But is this truly a threat or is it similar to the scare tactics used when cell phones first became popular? Many remember signs stating "No Cell Phone Area" for hospitals, and electronic devices are still required to be turned off in an aircraft. However, hospitals now realize that cell phones do not interfere with pacemakers, defibrillators, or other lifesaving equipment and no longer require the ban. There is no proof that a cell phone will ignite fuel when filling ones gas tanks, and many cell phones abroad aircraft with no adverse effects to the planes navigation systems. So, we then have to research and determine for ourselves real from perceived threats.

There is no doubt that social computing is going to continue to grow and the new generation is very electronic literate, children as young as five years old are using texting, instant messaging, and social networking. This generation is going to use social computing and will likely invent and develop new computing techniques in the future.

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References:

Vannoy, S.A. & Palva, P. (2010). The social influence model of technology adoption. Communications of the ACM, 2010 June, Vol. 53(6). Retrieved from the Regis University Library.

Stone, B. (2009). Is facebook growing up too fast? New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/technology/internet/29face.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

Tessler, J. (2011). Planned internet threatens GPS. Associated Press: Wyoming Tribune Eagle, 2011, April 7, p.B5. Cheyenne: Wyoming Tribune Eagle