I would like to firmly disagree with Sandra Bank’s school of thought that, social networking brings us closer to isolation. My argument is that social networking just like any other technology was created with one thing on mind, to make life easier and better. Like any other technology; there will always be benefits and drawbacks, and of course the benefits outweighs drawbacks. It is we who abuse the parameters, for instance, all social networking sites possess robust and sophisticated privacy settings for users to select to whom they decide to share or divulge information to. Social networking has honed social skills and has enabled its users to make friends. Human beings are social beings and in today’s fast-paced life, social networking has come handy to make us to be in touch with our friends, family and relatives. It is when people go overboard by abusing this social networking sites for selfish reasons or ill-motives that resort to some unthinkable consequences.
Social networking has its blessings and a curse for those who overstep the boundary and abuse it. They are created with a sense of community to enable people to connect and share with college friends, family, relatives, colleagues, friends who are in far-away geographical zone. Its drawback comes in when people or persons abuse it for selfish, malicious reasons. When you violate anything and use it as a tool for incriminating others, there has to be consequence and sometimes the consequences can be far-reaching, like in the case of violinist, Tyler Clement, when Dharun Ravin invaded Cement’s privacy space. According to this excerpt from Sandra Bank’s article, “Roommate asked for the room till midnight. I went into molly's room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay.
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The post was a hit with his online buddies. So when Clementi texted him two days later and asked for privacy again, Ravi put out this message to draw even more viewers in: Anyone with iChat, I dare you to video chat me between the hours of 9:30 and 12. Yes it's happening again.”
This clearly shows that Ravi overstepped the privacy of Clementi, by enabling live streaming of the sexual escapades Clementi was enjoying. Clement heard earlier requested that he needed his own private time alone, but not knowing Ravi had sinister motive to intrude what Clementi was up to. This clearly demonstrates that Ravi not only did invaded Clement’s personal space but also betrayed him. All this misconduct suggests that, it was done for selfish reason. He used what his room-mate was going through to make mockery out of it in order to share it out with other college friends vial social network. This was gross.
Social networking don’t create Isolation, it is we who does so irresponsibly. According to the article, it suggests Clement had a choice to confront Ravi and solve it amicably, because Ravi was the source of the menace, but instead he decided to lay low and not take action. Ravi on the other hand had a choice to stop invading Clementi’s space. The suicide would have been avoided. According to this citation from the article, “He could request another roommate, but considered Ravi a "decent guy" and worried that he might do worse. He could report Ravi to Rutgers officials, but didn't want to end up "with nothing happening except him getting pissed at me." Or he could just "be more careful next time … be sure to turn the cam away" so Ravi couldn't spy on him.
Having a conversation with his roommate about what happened "just didn't seem like an option," he wrote.
We need to be discipline and conscious of personal space when sharing information across the internet. I will tend to disagree with Sandra Bank’s when she says that, “the younger generations lash out at gay teens and they are not the only subjects of ridicule,” this comes out as a problem of lack of accommodating persons of different sexual orientations, race or religion on our society. This is a social prejudice channeled through social networking, and tackling it from a social networking perspective will not solve the problem. A society has to embrace diversity in all spheres of its heritage or nationhood. All persons need to be guided and guarded by the constitution; which is the supreme law.
Isolation is cannot be created by social networking. If at all anything, social networking embraces social interaction. It is lack of discipline, sense of responsibility and respect. These are values which as a result of their deficiency in a character of a person results to such vices which took life of a passionate violinist. It may also be perceived that Tyler Clementi had some deep-seated personal issues which he was grappling with and with no one to listen to he developed his own personal support system with the internet. Incidences of employees posting pictures of their erotic experiences by either video or photos across the internet and social networking has led to some of the victims being laid off from duty as their bosses learn of the shocking revelations. Social networking is a technology with social capacity to change and influence and one has to be vigilant on what they broadcast across. People need to be educated about the internet and social networking as they are medium of communication and social interaction to avoid abuse.