Problems of Social Networking

Social networking sites are websites that provide a virtual community for people of the same tastes, and interests. Interested persons create their profiles in these websites and begin to connect to friends, family or interact with new friends via online activities such as, email, chat photos, events and status updates. Example of social networking sites include; facebook, myspace, myyearbook,twitter,youtube  webkinz and club penguin just to mention but a few. Social networking sites form real grounds for making friend and sharing important information with family and friends.

 
However, they have become channels through which social crimes are perpetrated like cyberbullying, online predation and privacy invasion or personal security risks. Both kids and adults are at risk of embarrassment by providing much information on their profiles pages on social sites for the whole world to see. Increase of social networking sites is not the root cause of social crimes like cyberbulling, Internet predation and privacy invasion; they have only increased the volume of content or increased susceptibility to the problems. For better understanding of social networking problems, the social networking sites wil tackled separately.
Cyberbullying 

Cyberbullying can be defined as the use of Internet to send or post text, video, or image to hurt or embarrass another person intentionally. With the advent of the Internet and subsequent advancement of technological tools like notebooks, tablets and mobile phones, cyberbullying has evolved to a very challenging issue in our lives now more than ever before (Smith, 2009). This includes such sites like face book, tweeter, LinkedIn, myspace just to mention but a few. Cyber bullying mostly occurs in chat rooms, blogs, emails, texting and more commonly social networking sites. There are several types of cyberbullying that are practiced nowadays. They include;
Harassment: It involves repeated behavior of sending nasty, mean and insulting messages.
Flaming: This is a kind of online fight that is characterized by instant messages or email with vulgar or angry language.
Denigration: This bullying involves "dissing" someone online by posting gossips or rumors about the person with the intention of damaging the reputation of the person.
Impersonation: This kind of bullying involves someone pretending to be someone else and sending or posting materials online with the intention of damaging ones reputation or friendship.
Pranking: This involves tricking an individual to provide embarrassing information or secretes and then sharing it online.
United States Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, (2008) found that 43% of teens (4of 10) provide information that they have experienced some form of cyberbullying last year. The report released on Feb., 11, 2010, by David Abel, Globe staff entitled
"Newburyport teens charged in cyberbullying case" reveals that three 14 years old boys from Newburyport were charged with the identity after they allegedly harassed a boy at high school by creating a false facebook page having the boys name and picture and then posted disparaging remarks on the page about the student. The police report indicated that the boys accused of bullying were judged at Newburyport district court. Lieutenant Mark Murray of the Newburyport police department retaliated that bullying has been rampart in the state and they will take the case seriously so as to send a message to the whole state. Murray said that the harassment will not be tolerated since the prince of phoebe, 15, had committed suicide by hanging herself after being bullied by a group of girls who taunted her with a series of hurting messages on facebook. The boy who did not have a facebook page was questioned by many students about the posts on the facebook page and other attacked him physically by tripping him (United States Department of justice.  National Institute of Justice, 2003).
Visual script for Cyber bullying statistics
The following statistics were adapted from youth research compiled at cyberbullying. The approximate number of youths who have been victimized by cyber bullying is about 33% - 56% of the primary cyber bullying location was in the chat room According to United States Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics (2008), 49% of the victims in the chat room were victimized via instant messages while 28% via e-mail (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 1997). The statistics reveal that about 34 % of the bullied youth feel frustrated, 22% feel sad and 30% feel angry. Of the total percentages bullied women feel angrier than men. About 41 % of the victims remain quiet of the abuse while about 38% tell at least an online friend of the abuse.
Of the interview guys 17 % admitted to have bullied an individual online. The interviewees revealed that they considered it fun or instructive to bully their victims so as to strengthen them. More than 50% of the participants interviewed felt that cyber bullying is bad and is just like or more badly than bullying that occurs in real life situations (youth research compiled at cyberbullying.us). 42% of the kids interviewed revealed that they have been bullied online and 1/4 of them indicated that the bullying occurred more than once (United States Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2008). Cyberbullying is on the rise in the recent years as the national survey of 10-17 years old c indicated that more than half of the online children have been victims or perpetrators of bullying.
Conclusion
Cyber bulling, Internet predators and personal security risks caused by use of social networking site is real and is on the increase as seen from above. The advent of social networking sites only accelerated the problems associated with Internet crimes. The best way to curb or stop cyberbullying, online predation and personal security risk is by educating Internet users to be careful about the information they reveal about them online. More research should be done on cyberbullying so that strong measures can be developed to curb these crimes which are on the increase in the recent years (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 1997). Most importantly the parents should be alert and informed about the social sites their children are operating so that they can easily monitor any kind of bullying or abuse resulting from the sites.