The Impact of Social Networking

Story: TG DAily: "Facebook dumbs you down"
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Take:
This new social phenomenon is impacting the most impressionable part of the society in a less than positive way. While hijacking the good name of technology and limiting our kids' imagination and desire for knowledge, it provides the perfect anonymity for predators, who otherwise would have not had the guts to approach a child. Further more, by empowering pointless narcissistic drivel, those websites encourage a culture of false popularity, achieved by often disclosing private information, bullying, or publishing materials that can easily ruin someones life and career.
Sales professionals have embraced this phenomenon as a platform to influence markets. HR managers are looking for qualities like "fluent in Myspace". Good move - while Asians and Europeans are encouraging interest in engineering and science, we are boning up on MySpace and Twitter "skills". There is no way they become more advanced than us, right? (sarcasm).
Some companies are even conducting research and building marketing strategies, spending real money, based on questionable deductions from what a bunch of adolescents clicked on while bored out of their minds. I hope those sales folks build a loyal customer base because in few years, when those kids grow up and get low paying fast food jobs, due to lack of real skills, knowledge, and drive, they will have very limited disposable income to buy foreign-made cars, electronics, and everything else for living, which we'll have to import because there is not enough qualified work force to produce it at home. Then, it will take a lot of selling to low-income buyers to keep that sales job safe.