In 2003, Mark Zuckerberg co-created a new definition for connectivity in his Harvard dorm room–He called it Facebook. He gave “people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.” Today, 500 million users worldwide are connected via this open world—the social networking site, Facebook. Twitter connects over 100 million users. There are only 308.4 million citizens living in the United States. There are more users connected to Facebook than there are citizens in America.

I believe social networking technology has changed our lives for the better, but at a cost. Social networking tools have made it nearly effortless for me to keep in touch with friends, family and colleagues. I can know what's on their minds who else they know (Facebook), and even what they are doing at this very moment (Twitter). On the other hand, I'm not sure I need to know any of that.

Instant Messaging, e-mail, and voice-over-Internet-protocol has made it possible for me to be in touch with more people than I will ever meet in person, yet each one of those contacts often requires me to return a call, respond to an e-mail, or reply to an IM. The Outlook "Out of Office" flag doesn't stop the mail from coming, it just postpones the response.

And there will come a time when we'll hold all our meetings on the Web, have truly immersive face-to-face video conversations, and experience a fusion of our real and cyber worlds when second life becomes second nature. We're just not there yet.

While all humans need to feel connected to each other or to some cause, there are also times when we simply want to disconnect, and disconnecting is becoming increasingly hard thanks to social networking technology. As one who was bitten early by the Blackberry bug, I can attest that the pull of these wireless electronic leashes is often too strong to resist. Today, we experience a feeling of isolation when our Internet connections go down, revealing just how dependent we've become on the connective power of the Web.

Society, through social networking sites, has created a new way of maintaining and creating relationships—of staying connected and it all takes place online. It’s casual. Connectivity and access to social networks are simply part of life. We do not even recognize the dependency we have on technology and the amount of time we dedicate to these social networking sites or to what extent it has taken the place of our everyday actions—like saying hello on someone’s Facebook wall as opposed to giving that someone, your mother, a call.

We surrender ourselves to technology. We let machines do what we use to with our hands and with our voice. Now, we express ourselves in 140 characters or less.  We exist in two parts—in person and online. It’s simple. You are not connected if you are not online.

Online, we create this digital presence that acts as an extension of us—sometimes as a surrogate to our physical capabilities. Though the message is the same, the medium is different. Tweets have replaced the common handshake. An email has taken the place of a simple phone call and relationships are not official until updated on Facebook. These prominent social networking sites have redefined us—our way connecting to one another and communicating with each other.

Technology consumes us. It is starting to replace us. It does our work for us and we give it permission to. Society has become Google-educated and Facebook dependent. We rely on Facebook notifications and Twitter’s trending topics to communicate—to connect with our social network. When users create an online profile, upon hitting log on, we submit our control to technology—our voice to html text and status updates. Our connected world is an online one. It grays out the rest of our life—our background becomes sepia tone and we depend on these social networking sites to exist for us. You’re not connected if you are not online. “It’s like you fell off the face of the earth!” Facebook created a new definition for connectivity. Twitter, email and Facebook redefined communication. It’s easy.

Students today have begun to rely on the accessibility of information that is available on the social media platforms specifically as well as the web in general in order to get answers. This means that there is a reduced focus on learning as well as on retaining information.

In addition, students are attempting to multi-task. They are trying to check various social media sites while they study. This leads to reduced academic performance. Besides, their ability to concentrate on their task at hand gets significantly reduced due to the distraction that is brought by all these social media sites.

The other negative effect on students is that they are spending too much time on social sites, and much lesser time on socializing in person. In fact, there is a lack of body signals besides other nonverbal cues, including tone and inflection in case of social networking sites. Thus they cannot be considered as an adequate replacement for any face-to-face communication. Not only this, students who are spending a great deal of time on these social networking sites are not able to communicate in person in an effective manner.

These social media sites have become so popular in such a short time because the information gets published in a fast way. This has actually created a lax attitude for using proper spelling as well as grammar. In fact, the students are unable to write effectively without the aid of the spell check feature of a computer.

The kind of anonymity that is available on the Internet has made many students forget that they need to filter any information that they post. In fact, many colleges as well as potential employers tend to investigate the social networking profiles of an applicant before they grant any acceptance or an interview. And there are many students who are not constantly evaluating the content which they are publishing online. All this can lead to negative consequences even later on in their life. Thus, men’s greater reliance on social media have changed the obsolete modes of communications and social gatherings.