William Davies (cited in Flew 2004, 78), the underlying principle of social software is "to break down the distinction between our online computer-mediated experiences and our offline face-to-face experiences. It is software that pays heed to the lessons of social capitol, and seeks to integrate the internet further into out everyday lives and our everyday lives further into the internet”.
In this on-going round for round bout in which this blog aims to in the end clearly identify the significant changes in which was brought about by the conception and mass utilisation of the internet. The way in which communication has developed to aid us in our every day lives can be seen in the way we do business as well as the way we do people. Computer mediated communication (CMC) can be defined by three inter-relative attributes; the building of socialnetworks and social capital; the sharing of knowledge and information; and the enabling of new modes of democratic participation in public life (Flew 2004, 01). The key to CMC is social networks, as without the basis in which congregates individuals with common interest there would be no such thing as CMC. Social networks has the ability to collaboratively collect like minded users who actively seek out one another to engage in CMC in which is of interest to them. The popularity of social networks has attributed to the breaking down of barriers such as geography to allow worldwide connectivity. .”Life will be happier for the online individual because the people with whom one interacts most strongly will be selected more by commonality of interest and goals than by accidents of proximity” Licklider and Taylor (cited in Flew 2004, 63). The sizes of these social networks vary whether it be as enormous as the networking giants Facebook, MySpace, Flickr etc; or as small as the loyal viewers to a celebrity blog such as wwtdd.com where viewers interact through the comments page to share views about such topics. The internet through social networking gives each user the ability to locate and collaborate like minded users whilst cutting down the physical barriers that existed before such tools. These barriers are elements of traditional face-to-face (F2F) communication in which social networking is making obsolete. The concept of F2F communication becoming obsolete is a dramatic overstatement however in the areas in which F2F fail, CMC reigns supreme. Social networking eliminates geographic limitation with the ability to connect peer to peer (P2P) no matter where they are located. It also eliminates the humanistic restraints of inherent shyness and the inability for humans to connect on a F2F value. Social networking also acts as a filter as it allows humans to interact solely on like-minded and similar character traits. Flew (2004, 68) states that “early studies of CMC suggested that people were cooler towards one another, more task-oriented and more prone to disagreement in CMC that they were in face-to-face groups; this was attributed to the absence of casual an verbal cues in online communication”. It is obvious that the rise of social networking and social networking tools aided by collaborative software in which attracts users with the potential for a large number of possible virtual companions has allowed for a greater and more interactive online community. Although CMC can not satisfy the human emotions of physical touch embodied in F2F communication, it allows the ability for two or more individual a chance in which they would not normally be exposed to the ability to connect with each other.
J.R. Licklider. and
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