Since the late 1990s, the proliferation of social networking sites has grown to permeate the lives of not only Americans but also people around the world. Since 1997, the use of social networking sites has grown to the point that “Facebook reported one billion monthly users worldwide on October 4, 2012” (Procon.org). Founded less than ten years ago, in 2004, Facebook is currently the most popular social network on the planet, counting one in seven people worldwide interacting with its site. Academic literature has exhaustively studied the use of social networks in recent years, but one question has yet to be answered: Do social networking sites cause more harm than good? This discussion assumes that despite the numerous harmful effects observed from the use (or abuse) of social networking sites, overall they have been of overall benefit to both individuals and societies around the world. While this brief discussion cannot hope to unequivocally determine the question of good versus harm, it will present an argument in support of the conclusion that social networking sites have both useful commercial and personal applications and should be considered a boon rather than a bane to the our 21st century world. This article outlines a brief history of the inception of social networking sites followed by an examination of the privacy issues surrounding the use of social networking sites and concludes with a comparison of the pros and cons of user interaction. Since careful observers may draw different conclusions from identical data, it should be emphasized that individual mindsets can influence perceptions of the use of social networking sites. Therefore, the perception of social networking sites often depends on how one establishes one's popularity among peers, but also one's self-improvement and self-esteem. Furthermore, social networking sites are also used as a means for users to identify themselves with a cyber social fingerprint. Self-presentation theory applies to a person's attempt to project a distinct identity and image to peers. Another concept hypothesized by social researchers is that of impression management, which is the project that people use to "plan, adopt and implement the process of transmitting to others an image of themselves in interaction with the communicative context" (Zywicka and Danowski). Therefore, users of social networking sites likely build a profile to cultivate a specific image for other viewers. These two concepts suggest that social networking sites play an important role not only in creating but also in strengthening a sense of self for the user of the site as well as other viewers or "friends"."..”