Well, at the pace of the Interweb, this news (GN) is so very old that it’s started to grow mold, but I’ve been so busy that I haven’t been able to put any thoughts down until now.
Way back in February, I got my first invite into the world of facebook from a local friend. At the time I didn’t join up because it seemed to me (and still is in some manner) just another social networking site that offers very little and having seen the junk that exists in the MySpace realm, I figured that it was more of the same. But what started wheels turning that there might be something different is that the friend that sent me the invite wasn’t younger, but older than me.
Fast forward to a couple weeks ago and my wife hops on almost instantly gets hooked… the crackbook effect seems to be bigger than the CrackBerry effect (and yes, you can use your BB to get on facebook Mobile with ease). I take a look at it and I’m thinking… interesting…. maybe I can make use of this to help support cohorts of students or lab instructors or any other group that you would want to pull closer together through more than just work (and it seems that I’m not the only one thinking like this… (IT Business) I knew I wasn’t but like everything else in academia… until there is someone else with the same idea, it doesn’t count for much – I’m also thinking about using it as an intro portfolio and blog tool).
I guess I’m lucky that I can access facebook at work as there are many companies, university (New Mexico) and governments (Ontario, US Military?) (GN) that are banning it from their networks. If this were to happen to me, I would think that this is just one more old world response to a new world idea. Work and school are not silos. They rely on the connections and passions developed at home and facebook allows for this. Does it waste time? Perhaps. Does it allow for work to be done? Perhaps. Is it worth banning it to force employees to be on task? I don’t think so.
I wrote earlier that facebook is the way that so many people are connecting in a very succinct manner – one liners on walls – but it’s also a place to support discussion groups. This isn’t really that different from the “old school” of email … which some organizations limit to be internal only… perhaps if only for the reason that they are afraid that their IP will leak out. Granted there are some secrets that you don’t want to have leave, but generally, there are so many wheels out there that are being re-invented that using tools like facebook could actually help an organization improve it’s productivity. This is of course the best case.
The worst case is, as the media loves to jump to is that networking sites like facebook can be used for great evils as well. There was a story on the local news last week about the system being used by predators. But as we know from growing up, the predators are not always the ones that older, but they can be younger as well (classic bullies). Comments, images and other identifiers travel like wild fire (Canada.com) and can’t be taken back (YT and “Think before you post”). Some of these evils have been anticipated by the facebook system and they allow people to control what of their profile is released, but others are up to the user. When those users are children, teachers should certainly be the ones that are helping train their students as to how to manage their identity online (this should be in Div I/II).
With all this, what is one to do? I don’t have that answer, but what I do know, is that facebook is a meme that has broken into the mainstream. Knee-jerk bans, together with hearing about facebook at just about every gathering I’ve been to over the last week and a bit, (not only from people of my age, but older individuals as well) suggest that social networks have arrived for the masses.
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