Social software is a computer software that enables users to interact and share data. People use social software to talk with friends, and meet new people. Yes social software can be bad for many reasons like cyber bullying, or people making fake pages or accounts to be able to talk to people but it is a blessing in disguise. In the article, , ” Social Network Sites: Public, Private, or What?,” by danah boyd, it says, ” Profiles and Friends lists are two key features on social network sites. The third is a public commenting feature (‘Testimonials’, ‘Comments’, ‘The Wall’). This feature allows individuals to comment on their Friends’ profiles. These comments are displayed prominently and visible for anyone who has access to that profile.
These three features – profiles, Friends lists, and comments – comprise the primary structure of social network sites, although individual sites provide additional features for further engagement. While SNSes allow visitors to wander from Friend to Friend and communicate with anyone who has a visible profile, the primary use pattern is driven by pre-existing friend groups. People join the sites with their friends and use the different messaging tools to hang out, share cultural artifacts and ideas, and communicate with one another.” Also, in the same article, it says, Yet, while mediated and unmediated publics play similar roles in people’s lives, the mediated publics have four properties that are unique to them.Persistence. What you say sticks around. This is great for asynchronous communication, but it also means that what you said at 15 is still accessible when you are 30 and have purportedly outgrown your childish ways. Searchability. My mother would’ve loved the ability to scream “Find!” into the ether and determine where I was hanging out with my friends. She couldn’t, I’m thankful. Today’s teens can be found in their hangouts with the flick of a few keystrokes. Replicability. Digital bits are copyable; this means that you can copy a conversation from one place and paste it into another place. It also means that it’s difficult to determine if the content was doctored. Invisible audiences. While it is common to face strangers in public life, our eyes provide a good sense of who can overhear our expressions. In mediated publics, not only are lurkers invisible, but persistence, searchability, and replicability introduce audiences that were never present at the time when the expression was created.” Social software let us communicate with a lot of other people and if used for a good reason, it can be good for people.

People like us love being social by communicating, collaborating, and interacting with each other to be their own company. But then something has changed in society that made the social world even more active thanks to the introduction of social media on their devices such as PCs, phones, and tablets to keep users in contact with each other so the real question are these: What is social software, how does it help us to be connected with each other through digital communication, and why it is a blessing in disguise? Let’s explore the term of social software so we could all find the answers to those questions, shall we?

Social software consists of social networking apps such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and many others that enable us, users, to interact and share data through devices. Social media sites could be public or private depending on how our decision will affect the outcome of social media when we use it. In the PDF reading entitled, “Social Network Sites: Public, Private, or What?”, Danah Boyd stated that “Today’s teenagers are being socialized into a society complicated by shifts in the public and private. New social technologies have altered the underlying architecture of social interaction and information distribution.” She also explained that adults were worried that their children will be corrupted by the power of social media after it was introduced in the 2000s.

Social life in the digital world is like the music we listen to every day that as mentioned to Michelle Kasprzak’s article,  “Abundance in Scarcity”, musicians used their own work to make them interact with their fans so their communication skills would be accurate to perfect the social world which is another example of why social software is very beneficial to all human beings in society.

Not only does social software helps users to communicate with each other through digital life but it also helps to create online communities or groups on social media sites. According to the writing, “A Group Is Its Own Enemy,”  Clay Shirky made a case about social software that she gave an example about the email that “Now, software that supports group interaction is a fundamentally unsatisfying definition in many ways because it doesn’t point to a specific class of technology. If you look at email, it obviously supports social patterns, but it can also support a broadcast pattern. If I’m a spammer, I’m going to mail things out to a million people, but they’re not going to be talking to one another, and I’m not going to be talking to them — spam is email, but it isn’t social. If I’m emailing you, and you’re mailing me back, we’re having point-to-point and two-way conversation, but not one that creates group dynamics.” She also pointed about Bion’s theory on individuality in humans that “He said that humans are fundamentally individual, and also fundamentally social. Every one of us has a kind of rational decision-making mind where we can assess what’s going on and make decisions and act on them. And we are all also able to enter viscerally into emotional bonds with other groups of people that transcend the intellectual aspects of the individual.” These quotes proved that we are individuals who can make decisions based on our social backgrounds so we could have enough time to make new friends in social life.

We found the answers to our questions about social software and now, we know why. It is because it helps us communicate with each other so we could share things through social media but not only that but it creates groups for us to join so could get to know and learn more about each other before we could trust ourselves in society to create friendships that would last for a very long time.

In the closing statement, is social software a blessing in disguise? My answer is an absolute yes.

Social software is a general term used to describe social networking that allows people to communicate and collaborate while using the application according to Wikipedia. Some examples of social software are instant messaging, email, and chatrooms. Social software can be seen as a blessing in disguise because it has helped us improve/advance as a society in the world of new and ever changing technology, but it has also tremendously hurt and damaged us in the sense that we have become dependent on these social software as they have become distractive towards our everyday responsibilities. In the article “Clay Shirky Gin, Television, and Social Surplus,” he stated “did you ever see that episode of Gilligan’s Island where they almost get off the island and then Gilligan messes up and then they don’t? I saw that one. I saw that one a lot when I was growing up. And every half‐hour that I watched that was a half an hour I wasn’t posting at my blog or editing Wikipedia or contributing to a mailing list. I was forced into the channel of media the way it was because it was the only option.” This is an example of how distracting a form of social software can be because the main goal of media is to increase your consumption of whatever it is they create to the point that you forget that there is a life outside of media outlets such as television and social media sites. He also stated that children are growing up being indirectly taught that media involves consuming, producing, and sharing and if that is the case then it will become more difficult to overcome this cycle of dependency that feeds our social status and self esteem.  The article “Abundance in Scarcity” by Michelle Kasprzak begins by discussing several positives of social software such as  the fact that it is“enabling us to express ourselves for purposes both mundane and sublime.” We use social software to help us express our thoughts and feelings whether it be of things that are boring or grand, it gives us a platform to speak our minds and engage in conversations with others who may be similar or different from us. However a main point mentioned in this article is that being presented with fewer options of social software and not increasing the amount can offer greater opportunity for original thoughts and actions. I absolutely agree with this because as a result of the continuous increase in social software, many people are now struggling with a sense of identity loss because we now go about our everyday lives copying the way others dress, talk, and carry themselves as a whole. Nothing and no one is original anymore because the ideas that we think that we are creating have already been thought of and are being used for profit. There is a lack of creativity and imagination amongst children and even adults. We no longer belong to ourselves, we belong to the media.

Why is Social Software a blessing in Disguise ?

These days we solely rely on the internet for most of our daily activities. Since the creation of Facebook, social software has became the main source of communication for individuals. From the creation many other social site have been created such as twitter, instagram, snapchat, and much more. In the article “ Social Network Sites: Public, Private, or What?” by Dana Boyd, she explains how our lives are shaped by social technology. Boyd states “People join the sites with their friends and use the different messaging tools to hang out, share cultural artifacts and ideas, and communicate with one another”(pg. 2). These social sites and apps have became our main source of communication we barely make regular calls anymore, we are too busy snap chatting videos to one another or making FaceTime calls. iMessage and apps such as instagram and snapchat allow individuals to send voice notes to one another so regular phone calls are not even necessary for communication, unless the situation is urgent. I can say social software has made communication much easier especially apps like “whatsapp” that allow us to communicate internationally without running up our phone bill. The great thing about Social software is being able to communicate with people from all over the world there are no restrictions. But there is a downfall to social software, there is no privacy everything is open to the public which can be disturbing, people may feel like they have no privacy when owning a social media account. Although these apps allow us to make our profiles private, our profiles are never really private. People can create fake accounts to gain access to your profile or people have the ability to screenshot our profiles so there is still a chance a person who you might be hiding from your profile may end up seeing it. Instagram and snapchat does allow you the option to make your stories private, but now that apple has installed the “screen recording”option on our phones people now have the option to screen record anything that pops up on their screen or feed, it’s really hard to ensure your account is truly private. For these reasons social software might not be a blessing in disguise because of all the information that is shared publicly.

Social software is computer software that enables users to interact and share data. Software like MySpace, Facebook, emails, and instant messaging are considered social software. Social software is a blessing in disguise because it allows for easy communication throughout the world. It is made easy to contact people who a person is unable to see face to face. Family members are able to keep tabs on each other with the touch of a button. Many people who use social software have friends who they have never really interacted with or met before. This is the blessing of the software, it connects you to people that you share interests with or mutual friends with, allowing you to network your business or interact with people who you have things in common with. Many jobs that are looking to hire a particular person will look for their social software accounts and take into account what they see/find out when considering that person for the job. That is considered a blessing to the jobs because they can find out more about that person just by searching their name. It might not be a blessing to that person because if they posted something irrational when they were younger, it could pop up and the job might see it and decide they do not want to hire that person anymore based on that one old post. According to the article “Social Network Sites: Public, Private, or What?”, technology will advance, making it possible to determine who specifically was is what footage. This is a blessing in disguise because it can allow Law Enforcements to pin-point criminals and easily identify them. Many crimes take long to solve because the police are unable to identify suspects from surveillance footages. A downfall in Social software is that as much as it connects us, it disconnects us to the people that we are with in the moment and the people who are right in front of us. Many people are quick to snap pictures and post it on instagram or Twitter or any other Social software to showcase their life. It is like if it was not posted and no one knew what that person was doing, then it is as if it never happened.

why social software might be a blessing in disguise.

Social media now a days is used to see what your friends and family might be up to, by seeing the type of photos, videos, and statuses they upload on it. Social media has its pros and its main cons that probably may have impacted my social skills like talking to people you may not know face to face, but from the perspective of an everyday user, the pros outweigh the cons, making social softwares a major blessing in disguise.

Social software made it so that information can we spread from around the world. This includes people that are less educated than others from using apps like whatsapp, facebook, twitter, & instagram. Also, when you think of businesses, you can see how much it helped the marketing world. People are able to show what they can do and if your a boss to a company,  you can see the skills of some people that you are interested in hiring. Jobs even use social software like linkin to connect and network with people in job related things

“ It’s also important to realize that the technology makes it easier to find those who are seeking attention than those who are not. The vast majority of teens using these sites are engaged in relatively mundane activities, but the ‘at risk’ ones are made visible through mainstream media. In this way, both the technology and the press coverage magnify the most troublesome aspects of everyday life because they are inherently more interesting. “

An example of this is the artist 6ix9ine. He was able to seek attention on social media by making comedy skits, saying reckless things, and giving back to the community and every time he would release a song it would get a lot of traction and millions of views because of the fact that everyone is tuned in to his social media behavior.

“Now, those four things are of course necessary but not sufficient conditions. I propose them more as a platform for building the interesting differences off. There are lots and lots and lots of other effects that make different bits of software interesting enough that you would want to keep more than one kind of pattern around. But those are commonalities I’m seeing across a range of social software for large and long-lived groups”

Kids nowadays don’t understand that the phone was once used for just making phone calls..

I believe social software is a blessing in disguise because it gives us the chance to communicate to others in a way that was never expected in the past. In the Michelle Kasprzak article, Abundance in Scarcity it states, “systems are constantly in use, enabling us to express ourselves for purposes both mundane and sublime. The rules of the english language, for example, allows us to communicate in both oral and written forms everyday.” this supports my idea of what social software is. It really does give us the power to connect with others and allow us to speak our minds. In the article Social Network Sites: Public, Private, or What? By Danah boyd, it mentions how today, teenagers are using social media to make friends. On social media nothing is private it is a portal for everyone to know your information. This brings fear to the older generation. In the written piece by Clay Shirky’s A Group is it’s Own Worst Enemy one thing that caught my attention was when Shirky stated, “We’ve had social software for 40 years at most, dated from the Plato BBS system, and we’ve only had 10 years or so of widespread availability, so we’re just finding out what works. We’re still learning how to make these kinds of things.” the reason this caught my attention is because I was unaware about how long social software has existed. We only see the changes it has made today in our lives. Lastly, Clay Shirky spoke more about changes made in Gin, Television, and Social Surplus. These articles show the pros and cons that come from social software. Overall I find social software to be beneficial for us because of the advancement it has created in the world, It makes our lives easier and creates innovation.