Friend Me!: 600 Years of Social Networking in America

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Social networking isn't a new idea. People have been connecting in different versions of circles and lists and groups for centuries. The broad range of social media includes wampum belts, printed broadsides (early newspapers), ring shouts (secret slave gatherings with singing and dancing), calling cards, telegrams, and telephones. The invention of the Internet?and e-mail, text messaging, and social utilities such as Facebook and Google+?is just the latest way in which humans network for fun, work, romance, spiritual bonding, and many other reasons. b