The Christian And Social Networks

In a fast growing world of socialization and connectivity, it is very important that a discussion of the nature be hold among the young people. Before we proceed it will be pertinent that we look at the key words in our topic and examine critically in order to have an indept understanding of the subject matter.


Christian :
A person who believes in Jesus Christ as his personal Saviour from sin, external death, and the devil, one who knows that he has external life through faith in Jesus Christ who died for him and rose again. One who lives the of Christ.


Characteristics :
(Gal 5:22-23).

Social Network :
It is online community of individuals who exchange messages, share information and in some cases, cooperate or joint activities. Characteristics :
Creation and maintenance of personal profiles.
Exchange of information and ideas.
Sending and receiving private messages.
Friendship Network.
From the fore going, it is clear that our discussion will bother on the Christian and what should be his attitudes towards social networks. We shall equally consider the contemporary attitude of young people vis-a-vis the social networks.
In doing so, we need to know reasons people join in social networking:

• Home pressure 
• Peer pressure 
• School / academic pressure 
• Social pressure 
• Media pressure 
• Cooperate or office pressure 
• Globalization and modernization pressure. 

Historical Background :
Online social networks are as old as technology could support them. E-mails & chat programs - 1970s persistent communities did not surface until the creation of USENET in 1979.
USENET began advantage messaging system between Duke University and the University of North Carolina. It rapidly expanded to other American universities and government agencies. It made use of Newsgroup.
Bullet Board system & USENET enabled individual to interact in an online social network, but each was essentially a closed system.


Early Pioneers
The first companies to create social networks based on web technology were class mates. Com and sixDegrees.com.clsssmates.com. Classmates.com was created in 1995 - Targetted college graduating students, armed service branches, workshops.
Sixdegrees.com was the true first social networking site. Launched in 1997. With most of the features that characterize such sites. It claimed to have attracted more them 3m users by 2000.
Frendster - 2002 - Jesus Christ
My space - 2003 - 70million monthly users by 2007, Facebook - 2004 -  Took classmates.com formula and turned it on its had, only open to students at universities and high school.


Founders:
Mark Zuckerberg,  Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes of Harvard University. While MySpace and facebook compete in North America.
We have Bebo in UK, Orkut in Brazil and India, friends recaptured southeast Asia, QQ has grown from an instant - messaging service to become a major force in the social networking realm.

The most adventurous is Ning launched it's final version in 2007.
Users create their own social networks from the ground up, using software that requires very little programming expertize.
Others like :
2go, Eskimo, Badoo, smigle, windows live, Skype, LinkedIn.


Benefits :

• Source of information 
• Avenue for exchange of ideas, culture and tradition.
• Extra curricular activity.
• Avenue for self advertisement.
• Avenue for connecting people and making friends. 
• Avenue for lectures and tutorials. 
• Avenue for publicity. 
• Avenue for private instructions and messages. 
• Instrument of globalization, modernization and urbanization. 
• Avenue for propagation of the gospel. 

Demerits:

• Distraction. 
• Promotes nudity and pornography.
• Encourages truancy and laxity. 
• Source of corrupt and immoral information. 
• Good source of propagation of occultic doctrines. 

Please Note:

• Do to others what you wish others to do to you (Matt 7:12).
• Keep strict watch that you walk not as unwise (Ephesians 5:15-16).
• Evil communication corrupts (1cor 15:33).
• Guard against every sort of covetousness (Lk 12:15).
• Be conscious of your spiritual need (Matt 5:3).
• Social Networks and Good Manners 
• Avoid chatting when or where it disturbs or distracts you or someone close. 
• Don't let social networks chatting disrupt important face-to-face conversation. 
• Do not exchange nude pictures or engage in immoral conversation. 
• Resist the temptation of forwarding interesting message you receive. The recipient may not appreciate it. 
• Do not send someone's pictures to another person if this may be impolite or embarrassing .
• Do not share someone's I.D or username with another without permission. 
• Avoid posting seductive or provocative status on your wall or the wall of another. 
• Avoid adding friends of friends, they may not appreciate you. 

Conclusion :
Social Networks as pleasant as they are, have their unpleasant consequences. Care must be taken to always live within the bounds of Christianity while engaging in them.