On February 15th Stephen J. Dubner posted an interesting compilation of opinions regarding the net effect of the technological boom of social networking on his the Freakonomics NY Times blog.  He asked a variety of renowned experts on social networking and technology through their latest studies at some of the leading universities in the United States and some leading technology companies such as Apple.  The question posed to the different perspectives was: “Has social networking technology (blog-friendly phones, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) made us better or worse off as a society, either from an economic, psychological, or sociological perspective?”  Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt created the Freakonomics blog after publishing their best-seller book that explored the hidden side of everything through an economics lens.  In this specific blog post, Dubner asks Martin Baily, Danah Boyd, Steve Chazin, Judith Donath, Nicole Ellison, and William Reader regarding how the social networking technology has changed our society in different aspects.

Their different perspectives were mostly positive and related greatly to the ideas discussed in the beginning of the course with nodes and bridges.  It is still too early to really evaluate how the new technologies and new social networking tools affect large populations.  However, these leading research experts have noted the positive benefits of people being more connected with such ease.  The idea of social capital is brought up and how it is increasing tremendously with the social networking websites.  Social capital increasing is exemplified when students starting at a new university have already pre-made acquaintances because of the social networking websites.  Also, sites such as Doostang and other social networking job search tools have helped people find careers outside of their specific personal face to face connections.  Furthermore, the blog post talks about the idea of homophily and how people tend to be surrounded by people that have the same interests.  William Reader, a social networking site researcher from Sheffield Hallam University,  states that social networking websites will never really replace face-to-face communication because it lacks the genuine contact needed for real friendship.  Overall, the leading social networking experts say that the new websites and technologies are definitely changing societies, but the value of the change really depends on what one values in their relationships and connections to others in their society.

Source: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/15/is-myspace-good-for-society-a-freakonomics-quorum/