With today’s society, everything we do is at the tip of our fingers and comes with a simple click. Connecting to people has never been easier especially when using sites like Facebook, Pinterest, and CafeMom. Staying in contact with friends, family, or co-workers in this digital age is as simple as logging onto Facebook. Missed a function? Most likely anyone who was there and you are friends with will post pictures of the event making you feel like you were there. Facebook offers the ability to load pictures, post what you are feeling at that moment, share information, join support pages, or just plain say hi to someone you haven’t seen in awhile. It’s the ability to connect international and never leaving the comforts of your home. Friendships are formed and often relationships have developed from Facebook. Pinterest lets you tell people your hobbies and what gets your attention whether it be reading, eating at a certain spot, or your favorite place to visit. It lets you organize things and helps others into what you could suggest for them. CaféMom is for mothers and mothers to be. It’s a local online support community that lets mothers or soon to be moms express their concerns, joys, cravings, and ups and downs before and after birth. Oddly enough, you these pages are linked together because you can like or share the sites on Facebook.

Having access to the sites can be a big help or pose as an underlying problem. There are many advantages and disadvantages in having social media and all that comes with it. Sites like CafeMom are a huge help for mothers to be. Every family member or friends with kids will try to give you unsolicited advice whether you asked for it or not. By using CafeMom, you can ask the questions that you feel are important to you and nothing else that you may not want to deal with. It’s an unbiased opinion of what may or may work for you. It also helps you keep a little track of your changing body and baby’s development, as well as dealing with toddlers and every ones favorite the terrible 2’s. Facebook gives you the chance to find friends you haven’t seen since high school or even elementary. With Pinterest, if you have been dying to try a new restaurant and you weren’t sure what it was like, just look on there and see what everyone is saying about it. With the good parts of social media come disadvantages. Social media has the tendency to allow us too much freedom and can often get some into trouble. With the majority of social media, we have the capability to tell people exactly where we are at or if we are home alone. Once you post it, it can become public knowledge and for younger kids this can definitely be a major problem. People are not aware that when you post your every move, you allow any kind of predators and stalkers to know where you are at and who you are with. Kids especially like to post that they are home alone for the weekend or for the night. They just put themselves into potential danger without even knowing it. For adults, posting wild pictures and statuses can hurt you from potential employers. Nowadays employers are taking to Google, LinkedIn, and Facebook to see what kind of person you are and what standards you may have. The very thing that provides entertainment is also headache and drama.

Knowing the advantages and disadvantages of social media can mean the difference of enjoying the site or regretting it. Educating yourself on the policies it the first thing. Know your rights and the way the site operates. Is it a trustworthy site? How much of your information do they sell to third parties? Is their site policed and regulated regularly but the administrators or creators of the site? Arming yourself with knowledge of what the site has to offer you personally, professionally, and mentally is something not a lot of people think about. Having fun is one thing, but being safe about it is a whole different playing field. When someone puts thought into the sites they become affiliated with, it shows that they actually took the time to review the site and see what they could benefit from it.