Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship

This article gave an interesting summary and history of the phenomena of social networking.
I was fascinated to see how long ago Social networking was started. A site called Six Degrees.com launched in 1997. It took two years for another site to launch. Six Degrees closed in 2000 but over 25 companies have since launched in different places all over the world.
This article defined social networks as: as web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system.
I was only familiar with a few of the companies LinkedIn, Facebook, You Tube, Twitter, and MySpace. I also must admit that the only reason I know of any of these sites is because I have teenage children. In my last semester of school I was also introduced to some of these different sites for the purpose of school work, one site being LinkedIN.
One main issue that has always been a main concern for all users is privacy. This article addressed this issue, but with growing technology it is going to be an ongoing process to keep up with the challenging legal conceptions of privacy. While it is the users responsibility to monitor what they are posting, once their information is up it is hard to control who can access it. “Hodge (2006) argued that the fourth amendment to the U.S. Constitution and legal decisions concerning privacy are not equipped to address social network sites.” The way the internet is growing and developing it has the least amount of protection as well as monitoring.
It is obvious that all social networking sites were not created equal or for the same purpose. It also seems that the people using the different sites and how they used the sites helped to direct how site was developing.
To me it seems that these sites have filled a link that is being lost in the busy lives of everyday people. It helps to connect or reconnect lost connections. While I have loved the sites that I use I often fear that the users will start to lead a more sedentary life style that leaves to more communication happening on-line than in person.