While users of smart phones increase and the wireless internet has expanded, users of Social Network Services are also increasing. SNS is an acronym for Social Network Service. To put it simply, SNS is an online service of making personal connection. Using SNS, people can make existing offline relations stronger, share information with acquaintances and make new friends. Representative community websites that help communication are Facebook, Twitter, Cyworld and Metoday.
After I joined Facebook, I have been using it frequently. Just joining helped me feel convenience. If I register schools that I graduated from in my profile, I can easily find schoolmates who had been out of contact. Also, exchanging information is easy because you can share information by clicking the ¡®like¡¯ button. However, such convenient SNS has negative aspects too.
Sometimes, SNS is the cause of many problems. Speed of information propagation is really fast, and the following ripple effects are tremendous. If someone spreads a false fact with wrong information on SNS, the fact spreads all over the internet like wildfire without confirmation of the fact. After false facts spread once, it is impossible to return to the time before that happened. Recently, a case of bodily injury at Suwon Station was misinformed as a murder case because some people uploaded pictures and videos of a bleeding, fallen victim on their SNS. Then, citizens in Suwon who had seen that information via SNS trembled with fear. In fact, the case of bodily injury that had been caused by two men because of a noise problem was distorted. Innocent victims who are damaged by false facts could be damaged psychologically so much so that they can¡¯t live normal lives because of the thought of their faces and personal information spreading. Moreover, indiscreet sharing of data on SNS can have a bad influence on students who use SNS because it makes them easily have access to cruel videos or obscene materials.
In spite of these problems, SNS remains popular because of the convenient functions, which are real time sharing of information, thoughts, and emotions. In order to maintain a sound, beautiful SNS culture, users of SNS need prudence in uploading information and discretion in sharing only correct information.