Moral Panics and Concerns with Online Technology

Social Networking...is it taking over? The internet being created into a more and more reliable source for communication or online socialising. Games like Second Life show the start of an online world where anything can be achieved, life itself is being turned into a cyber-life, where all form of communication can be carried out via computer and nothing else seems necessary to most people. Some good examples of growing online socialising companies include Myspace, Facebook, Second Life, World of Warcraft an more. Although easier to use etc. it is not as reliable as a real-life exchange of whatever the subject or object is and problems can occur which can effect people financially or moraley. People are starting to interact differently in that face-to-face interactivity is becoming less and less necessary and people use, games, blogs, online profiles and other forms of social networking to achieve there goals be it financialy, personal, information or general conversation. Large services, such as MySpace, often work with law enforcement to try to prevent such incidents. There is an issue over the control of data - information having been altered or removed by the user may in fact be retained and/or passed to 3rd parties.