a) How do you communicate with your friends? Do you use social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc?
b) How do social networking sites work? Listen, read and check.
Social networks
How do they work?
Do you use Facebook, MySpace, Twitter or Linkedin? If so, then you are part of a social network. Social networking site allow us to see our social connections. We can see our friends and their friends through pictures and links in a user-friendly interface.
When you create a profile on a social networking site, you open up a huge range of possible social connections. You can look up old friends, make new friends and share music, photos and videos with them. You can also join groups based on your interests or hobbies, favourite TV shows or music.
Setting up a social networking account is simple. You just create and post a personal profile. For this you need a login name, password and an email account. Then you add some personal information such as name, age, sex, location, interests, etc. You can also add a photo of yourself. You can personalise your profile and share as much information about yourself as you want. You can also control who sees your profile. For example, you can make sure that you only allow the friends that you have added to your network to see it. The next step is to search the network for your contacts, browse for new ones and add them to your network. You can invite offline friends to join by email or search for friends who are already signed up by name, school, or workplace. Then you can search your friends’ connections for anyone else you’d like to add to your network.
Different social networking sites allow people to interact in different ways. There are straightforward sites that allow you to expand your personal community such as Facebook. Then there are ones that involve media sharing, such as YouTube, where members upload and look at other people’s pictures and videos. There are also ones that specialise in sharing music, such as Last.fm, and finaly, ones that allow bloggers to form online communities, such as Lifejournal.
The latest trend in social networking is to create your own independent social network. Companies do this to promote their brand and individuals can do it to create a very tight-knit community.
a) Read the text and answer the questions.
b) Use your answers and the words in the Check these words box to tell your partner about social networks.
Think! Why do you think social networks have become so popular? In three minutes write a few sentences. Tell another group or the class.
In small groups, find out more information about a social network e.g. Twitter. Present your information to the class.