Annotated Bibliography

Bahney, Anna. “Don’t Talk to Invisible Strangers.” The New York Times. 9 March 2006. 28 January 2007 .

In this article, Bahney talks about the growing trend of social networking and how parents are reacting to the trend. In many schools, officials are holding meeting to inform parents about the threats of social networking and the dangers that exist. However, the article also talks about how there is a heightened and even unreasonable sense of fear and paranoia. In fact, a lot of the time youths consider the precautionary steps they must take online similar to those they must take in every day life.

Harmon, Amy. “Online Dating Sheds Its Stigma as Losers.com.” The New York Times. 29 June 2003. 28 January 2007 .

In this article, Harmon discusses the new reputation of online dating as a legitimate way to meet a mate. In the past, many have considered it for people with questionable social skills. Currently, there are millions of users using online dating services. The reason popularity of such sites has risen is because people are choosing to marry later in life. Thus, high school and college are becoming less viable options for meeting spouses. There are problems, however, such as those who lie on their dating profiles.

Landro, Laura. “Social networking comes to health care.” The Wall Street Journal. 29 December 2006. 29 January 2007 .

In this article, Landro writes about how people are turning to social networks to deal with disease and illness more and more. Now, health care advice is posted on the web. In addition, there are some support communities for people who have the same diseases. This means that victims can find support from individuals who know what they are going through, and the social networks enable such people to find each other more easily than before.

Saita, Anne. “Scam artists flocking to MySpace.” SearchSecurity.com. 5 April 2006. 26 January 2007 .

In this article, Saita discusses the threats of people who can use social networks, MySpace particularly, to hack into large databases and company systems. When users log into their accounts at work, information can become accessible to people outside of the company if proper precautions are not taken. The article addresses an entirely new way of hacking into computers, and the way to counter this new threat.


Siklos, Richard. “A Virtual World but Real Money.” The New York Times. 19 October 2006. 24 January 2007 .

In this article, Siklos talks about the virtual world called Second Life. Up until recently, the site has been primarily for individuals to interact with each other in a virtual world. However, advertising has begun to saturate it. Companies have begun buying places on the site so that they can promote their products on a different medium. Similarly to in the real world, when big corporations become part of Second Life, it threatens the individuals in the virtual community who “make a living” in the same manner. Companies defend themselves by stating that they are not forcing the Second Life participants to immerse themselves in the new wave of advertising.