Azernews.Az

By Araz Said, Azernews Staff Writer

Although the term "social network" does not necessarily refer to an online community, today it is the first thing that comes to mind. Launching the first online social network was a major event that revolutionized the entire networking experience. While some people argue that social networks have significantly simplified their ways of communication, others believe that this can be very addictive and dangerous. Despite the unceasing controversy about safety issues, the impact on individuals' real-life social skills, etc., the statistics show that the number of users of social networks continues to grow every day.

How it all began

When Mark Zuckerberg, a 20-year-old student at Harvard University, first launched Facebook (initially called Thefacebook) in February 2004 he probably could not imagine that his brainchild would change the world. Although it was created to provide social networking for the university, it soon became widespread among other American universities, then in the entire U.S., and shortly thereafter, the whole world started using Facebook.

Of course, Facebook wasn't the first online social network, but it surely was the one that popularized social networking and got millions of people all around the world involved in online communities.

Shortly after the Internet came along in the mid-1990s, it was clear that with the opportunities it created, the idea of a virtual community would be significantly developed and more applicable. Despite the growing success of such websites as Classmates.com (1995), Friendster.com (2002), LinkedIn.com (2003), Myspace.com (2003), these were mostly popular only in the USA. A couple of years after Facebook was launched, it became a worldwide phenomenon and almost monopolized the market.

Virtual life vs real life

Before social networks were introduced, features offered by them were available on the Internet through various websites. There were websites for online dating, chatting, video and photo sharing, e-mailing, video calling and all kinds of different ways of online communication. What Facebook and other social networks did was basically to combine all of these features in one website.

It seems like the goal of these websites is to provide everything we could need in real life for staying in touch with other people. It seems that with online games, news agencies and other media sources connected to our accounts and appearing in our news feeds, soon we will meet our online needs by visiting just one website.

The idea, of course, sounds good, but there is a certain level of risk to it. Addiction to social networks and the Internet in general has become a very serious problem lately, affecting mostly teenagers and kids. An Internet addiction rehab clinic, reStart, has opened in Washington DC, which suggests that the problem is even bigger than most of us think.

In other words, although having everything on one particular website could save us a great deal of time and simplify the online communication experience, it could also turn us into antisocial geeks and Internet addicts.

"OMG! Did you see this picture of you?"

While Internet addiction is something that can be avoided individually, there are some risks related to social networks that require taking safety measures by both the authorities and the users. Website administrations keep improving their security systems, but it is still important for the users themselves to be aware of the risks and try to avoid them.

Most of us thoughtlessly share our private data, photos, videos and other information on social networks, which creates great opportunities for hackers, scam artists and other people who would take advantage of that information. You might like sharing every little detail of your daily routine with the people in your "friends list", but posting status updates like "we're going on a vacation and will be away for two months" could be an invitation for robbers.

Using the same password on different websites and email accounts or setting simple passwords are probably the biggest mistakes made by the users. Once your account is hacked, the hackers can easily find ways to access your bank account, credit card info and other important data.

Another problem that most of us have faced is the scam messages. Clicking on a link that says something like "This is awesome! You have to check this out!" usually leads to a fake login screen or to malicious websites containing viruses.

Discussing online security issues during the annual hacking conference held in Las Vegas on July 26 to 29, Richard Marshall, a consultant on information security and former officer of the U.S. cyber-security services, issued a warning to Internet users.

"All systems are hacked long ago, you might simply not know it. While using any system you should assume that it has already been hacked," he said.

Social networking in Azerbaijan

As the Internet usage becomes more widespread in Azerbaijan, consequently, more people are getting involved in social networking.

According to SocialBakers.com, Azerbaijan, with 855,180 users is the #84 country in the ranking of Facebook Statistics by Country. The number of users has grown by more than 152,780 in the last 6 months, and almost 49 percent of them are in the age group between 18 and 24, followed by the users aged 25 to 34.

Statistics also show that Azerbaijan is the only country in the region where the number of male users exceeds the number of female users. While the ratio of male/female users is 45/55 percent in Georgia and 48/52 percent in Armenia, the number of male Facebook users in Azerbaijan is almost twice as much as female users - 64/36 percent.

What's next?

After considering the opportunities social networks offer, together with the risks they bring along, it seems difficult to decide whether we should be thankful for having them or be afraid of getting sucked into the virtual life more and more every day.

Whether it's good or bad is not a question with a straight answer. There are a lot of different aspects to be considered before answering this question, but the fact remains - social networks actually have changed the world's view on communication and networking.

So what if social networks succeed in providing online everything we need for communication? Is it going to make our lives easier or interfere with our real-life social experiences? Let's wait and see...