Social Networking Services Keep Us Connected
Have you ever wonder how you might be able to get back in touch with long lost friends from high school and college? Would you like to be able to efficiently find out if some of your friends might like to join you for dinner or a night on the town? Would you like to be able to find people with the same interests as yours?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you might like to check out social networking services. Social networking services are websites where you can do all this and more. I found a list of around 50 sites ranging from general to special interest topics. There are sites for students, ethnic groups, doctors, nature lovers and much more. To se this list and get started on your way to social networking go to social networking services list. This is by no means an exhaustive list.
These sites allow you to look for and add friends. When you sign on, you can search for people you know to see if they are already a member of the given site. You can also have the site search through your email address book and it will let you know which people from your address book are members. I didn’t try this option because I didn’t want to share my email password. When you find a friend who is a member, you can add that person to your friends list. The friend must give permission for this to happen. Assuming that your friends regularly update what they are doing at any given time, you can find out if your friends are doing all sorts of things like going out to dinner, going on vacation or maybe having a stressful day at work. Some of these sites will allow connectivity with mobile phones so that you can keep tabs on your friends on the go.
I signed up for membership on two general interest sites, facebook.com and twitter.com. Facebook is one of the most well known services. Shortly after completing my profile, I found a list of some of my classmates from high school. It will be interesting to reconnect after so many years.
These services can also help you with your career. You can let your friends know that you are looking for a new job or that you wish to change professions. You can also advertise that new business venture you just started.
Are social networking sites accessible? My limited experience with these sites suggest that there is a lot of work to be done. Both facebook and twitter require you to fill in letters and numbers from a CAPTCHA, which is a distorted image designed to make sure that the operator of the computer is human. These CAPTCHAs are inaccessible when using screen readers. Both facebook and twitter offer the option of audio CAPTCHA. These are distorted audio clips containing letters and numbers that must be filled in to past the test. I found them difficult to use. It took me an hour and a half to sign up for both facebook and twitter. Once signed in, twitter was easy to use. Facebook was more difficult with lots of graphics. Some sites do not even offer audio CAPTCHA. Finally, some sites present problems such as unlabeled graphics which limit the functionality of the site for those using screen readers. For more on accessibility of social networking sites, visit accessibility of social network services.
Social networking services offer a wonderful opportunity to get connected with friends and others sharing common interests. With improved accessibility, these sites could offer greater connectivity for disabled persons who are often isolated from the mainstream of society. Let us hope that accessibility of these sites will improve so that more persons with disabilities can take advantage of these opportunities.
For an interesting article on the history of social networking services, visit en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_networking. To follow goings on at the Carroll Center for the Blind on twitter, visit http://twitter.com/carrollcenter.