the facebook dilemma
As with other technology, I didn’t get introduced to using Facebook until I had a compelling reason to explore it. I was invited to Facebook by a friend with kids in Africa who wanted to show me pictures and snippets of her AIDS prevention campaign work. Within a month, I was being “friended” by old classmates, friends, and colleagues around the globe. There is a nuance to social networking that is different than simply reconnecting by email. And I doubt I would have looked up many of the folks who have friended me though it is meaningful to know what where they are now. The questions raised in previous posts about whose “domain” the online networking world are important. As far as students go, they may still harbor a mentality that it is a peer- exclusive domain. I’m not sure they will think to filter/ adjust their content until they have a compelling reason themselves; knowing that faculty, professors, adults, parents are using Facebook for their own legitimate reasons (and many more are) is a compelling reason to edit content appropriately. Other questions to consider: If students knowingly post content (however questionable) that will be seen by the world, should we avoid it, respond to it if concern is raised, discount it? If we avoid “friending” students as a rule, what is the rationale? Is there an easy way to divide the domain between students and teachers, adults and adolescents, or is that a false divide in the online universe. The reality is, the online world does overlap and intersect all ages and will continue to do so. A broader question is how to be acutely aware of personal boundaries and privacy needs in an era of cookies, data-mining, online-fraud, and expansive licensure rights (as with Facebook) and to teach students (and ourselves) the best way to proceed with thoughtfulness and care.
2 comments so far
Leave a reply
At my HS reunion this weekend, a close friend asked me, almost breathlessly, “Are you on Facebook yet?” I said I wasn’t and asked why he was so excited about Facebook. “It’s so cool,” he replied, “you find all these people who have something in common with you and your past and you can reconnect with all these people effortlessly.” I’m enough of a “connector” that I can see the appeal – hey, I was one of the planners of the reunion – but the piece I’m still trying to get my fingers around is, “how much time and energy am I committing to spend connecting with people who are removed from my daily experience and where in my life does that time and energy come from?” Tony said he was on Facebook about three times a week and it took “hardly any time,” but he also allowed that it was addictive. Are facebookers substituting many cursory connections for the greater depth of fewer personal connections. I want to know what lies down the end of that road, want to think about it anyway, before I start running down it.
I think, hdlemng, that there is a generational divide in the importance that you put social networking. In my humble opinion, Gen X and younger are comfortable with SNS’s (Social Networking Sites) and do use it more to “keep in touch” with friends. I agree with you that it is totally superficial, but you could argue that the now moribund postcard is also totally superficial, but it was/is a nice reminder that someone was thinking about you while on their trip… So are SNS’s ways to send out e-cards and keep e-tentacles in others’ lives? That seems to be the only reason things like Twitter exist!
Also, the reality of it is that SNS’s are only fun if there’s a critical mass of your peers and friends on there. Otherwise, your social network is a network of one!