If you have been to career connections or if you have been trying to stay atop the latest social networking trend you have undoubtedly come across the professional world’s version of Facebook, LinkedIn. Now while you might not be able to post pictures on LinkedIn many of the features of Facebook, such as connecting with friends and people you know and posting messages to others are available on LinkedIn. Additionally, you can see how the people you know are connected with other people and you can create your own “web” of professional connections. However, articles and books such as “Facing the Facebook” are not written about how LinkedIn is destroying our communities or how it is distracting us in the classroom and causing our critical thinking ability to decline. No, LinkedIn continues to operate and function as its cousin Facebook is taking the abuse. But what is it about LinkedIn that make it so much less controversial than Facebook? Is it that you can’t post pictures? No. I believe that what makes Facebook so controversial is its users and the setting in which they are using it. Facebook is used by mostly college students and those recently graduated. While older generations are beginning to use Facebook the main problems come from the use of Facebook by college students. LinkedIn however is used by professionals who use it for their professional life and to help them further their careers. People believe that younger generates abuse Facebook and use it as an opportunity to post inappropriate content on the web. It is as if society has created two characteristics of social networking sites, those that society deems inappropriate and should be monitored and censored on a constant basis, and those that should be used for professional careers and that should be used to an individual’s advantage. I truly believe that this is an unfair generalization because if Facebook is causing so many issues in our society LinkedIn must be examined under the same microscope. I think it is extremely interesting to compare these two social networking sites and while they have minor differences in their features, they are treated unequally because of their users.
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I understand the point you are trying to make, but I would have to disagree with it. I believe it actually does all boil down to the pictures. People love Facebook because they can view the pictures of others. If Facebook did not have that ability, than most of the controversy surrounding Facebook would be nonexistent. Linkedin is able to maintain a professional image because it prohibits users from positing photographs, which would take away from the true meaning of Linkedin.
ReplyDeleteKevin makes a good point. The whole reason Facebook is being targeted with negative feedback is because it allows users to post things on their pages and other peoples pages that are open for almost all other users to see. On Linked In, every form of communication is done through private messaging and therefore does not allow individuals to post controversial things.
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