Benkler

After reading Benkler's ideas, some examples that show the positive aspects of social networking are; the fact that Benkler mentioned both poor and wealthy people. He describes this by saying, "As the networked information economy develops new ways of producing information, whose outputs are not treated as proprietary and exclusive but can be made available freely to everyone, it offers modest but meaningful opportunities for improving human development everywhere" p. 10. I like that Will (below post) pointed out the fact that it made culture more malleable also. This makes sense to me in the sense that things can change through social networking on a daily basis, however it isn't something that is completely out of the ordinary.

Social networks are vast, and apparently I am not even aware of over half of them! Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace are relatively common and the below post listing all the different ones, is completely shocking to me. I knew there were dating sites and chat room-like networks where people sharing a common ground could unite with others, but other than that didn't even know about many of the mentioned sites. I think it's great to connect with others, however find it disturbing when others abuse the privilege by exposing to much of themselves.

In regards to using social networking for my own use, I would have to agree with the below posts as well. I use Facebook to coordinate meetings with group members for class as well as send out information about other things such as sports meetings. I have also been a part of making pages for loved ones who have passed away and using it as a memory site or prayer reminder for someone who is sick or has been hurt. It has amazing powers to bring people together for a cause, however can be rather impersonal sometimes as well.