Social Networking

So I had a conversation yesterday to a very high up Agent in the TV and FILM industry. It had my brain ticking over and really had me thinking. We discussed networking to an extent that I have never thought of before, he discussed his thoughts with me and we had a very good conversation. It all started when he asked if I use social networking and also do I network about jobs/auditions etc... I explained to him that i do use websites such as; Facebook,twitter but mainly for social reasoning such as flicking through people's pages and catching up on others people's lifestyles. Then he began to tell me what he uses it for. He began with telling how if he has someone trying to audition for him on the agency he will use Facebook and Twitter just to get a bit of background information and to see whether he can flick through people's images and see what they are like outside of there performing lifestyle, he uses his Facebook as a way of business instead of social and he finds that it really helps to depict whether he takes that person or not. Now I began to think that was very wrong and that it was a very bad misjudgement and that's gone against everything I've ever been told, for example 'not to judge a book by it's cover'. Although I then began to think, if you want to portray yourself on Facebook in a bad way with bad comments and bad pictures then you only can then expect to have a bad outcome and although it is all well and good having a Facebook page or Twitter page you need to really watch out for the privacy settings and make sure you keep a close eye on the things that go on and off of your Facebook because you never know who is looking. When an agent is looking at your page if they do? They want to see that you are a friendly, easy going guy/girl they need to know that they will be able to work with you. If you only have bad views on there it isn't going to do you any favours and they won't want to work with you!

Now after that started me off I then began to think back to when I was in my very early teens and I remember being on websites such as bebo and myspace. When I think back to that though I can never remember myself or anyone else in fact being that bothered about it, it got me thinking why has social networking suddenly become something that is so advance in technology? It has now become a huge part of everyone's day, and everyone uses it, some people get in to some big trouble and it caused to some people committing suicide and even some major bullying that lead to gang violence and even deaths, but it is still massively big with over 800 million subscribers, in 70 different languages.

That got me to the conclusion that with over 800 million people just on Facebook everyone must use social networking for different reasons but will it replace meetings and phone calls in the future?

Comments are key guys? Thanks