What’s up with social networking?
Talulah Habib
We’ve all wondered where this social networking thing came from and why it’s so huge. Well, here’s why.

Social networking came along seemingly out of nowhere - like a tidal wave. Some people grabbed their surfboards and jumped on for the ride, while others were knocked over and left staring at what was once their conception of the internet and their social lives, wondering what had happened.

In actual fact, the phenomenon did not come out of nowhere. The first social networking site went up back in 1997. It was called SixDegrees.com and offered users the chance to list who their friends were and see how they were connected to others.

Human beings have an innate desire to feell connected. Perhaps it goes back to caveman times when forming bonds gave us protection against the wide, scary world. Psychologists call it “group acceptance”; in African culture it’s known as “ubuntu” - the idea that we are only people because of our connections to others.
However, there is more to social networking than the feeling of belonging.

SixDegrees.com closed down in 2000 because making connections was just not enough; people wanted to interact with each other. Thus started the age of the modern social network, with sites like Facebook, which offer users the ability to maintain social relationships, find users with similar interests and share content.

A generation thing?
Many believe that the steady rise of social networking sites is thanks to Generation-Y – the so-called “MySpace Generation” - the first generation to grow up in the digital world.

According to an article in BusinessWeek (http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_50/b3963001.htm), while the older generation uses the internet as a tool to perform specific tasks, the fully-wired 20-somethings of Generation-Y use the net as an extension of their offline social lives. They chat to their friends on instant messaging (IM), invite people to events digitally, while at the same time keeping in contact with acquaintances through vast networks such as Facebook. They use the net as a common space to share things with their already-established social groups.

They were the first to arrive on Facebook (originally only open to college students), the first to punt MySpace (made popular mostly by their support for indie rock bands), but they were not the first to use Twitter. Twitter sprung to popularity at the 2007 South by Southwest (SXSW) festival because it allowed conference-goers to keep tabs on each other.

While the Y-generation may have been the first to catch the wave of social networking, the functionality is not generation-specific and the popularity soon swept across the entire web.

Social capital
Social capital is a sociological theory based on the concept of reciprocity. Individuals form ties to each other because they know that they will get value from the relationship – such value could be friendship, popularity, skill or even amusement.
Social networking offers a gigantic marketplace trading in social capital. People may follow you on Twitter because you tweeted a link to an article that made them laugh or they added you on YouTube because you posted a video interview with their favourite celebrity. Social networking has given people the ability to exchange social capital across a much broader spectrum that is not anchored in any geographical location.

Identity
A final factor in the rise of social networking lies with its effect on identity formation. Social networking sites give us the opportunity to control how others see us in a way like no other. We can personally create “profiles” that display how we wish to be viewed. We can choose flattering pictures, leave out undesirable information and engage in what academics Donath and Boyd (2004), call “public displays of connection” - presenting ourselves as popular.

Social networks give us the opportunity to be seen how we want to be seen, exchange content in ways we want to, maintain relationships on our terms and start new ones whenever we want. With so much to offer, is it any wonder that social networks are so popular?