7 things you should know about facebook ii
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7 things you should know about... FacebookII
ScenarioPaul is nearing the end o his third year as un under-graduate in the School o Agrology. He plans to start
graduate school ater he nishes his bachelors degree,
and his advisors encourage him to spend the summer
learning about institutions that oer graduate programs
in land management, his area o interest.
Paul does some research and identies hal a dozen uni-
versities that oer graduate programs that sound good
to him. The Agrology Club at his university maintains a
group on Facebook, and he browses the members o
the group, looking or people who attend any o those
institutions. He nds people at our o the universities
and contacts them, indicating his interest in the gradu-
ate programs at their schools. Through those people,
he connects with students at the other two institutions
also, as well as several aculty who teach in the various
programs.
One o the graduate programs Paul thinks might be a
good t is hosting an open house, which they advertise
on Facebook. Paul adds the event to his prole, where
he can also see others who plan to attend. Three days
beore the event, the organizers have to change the
time that it will start. Because Paul added his cell phone
number to his Facebook account, he receives a text
message on his cell phone alerting him to the schedulechange. When he goes to the event, he meets many o
the people whose pictures he has seen on Facebook
and with whom he has been corresponding. They are
glad to meet Paul in person and talk to him about sum-
mer internship opportunities the institution oers.
Ater the open house, two o the students and one
aculty member rom that institution send Paul regular
pokes, which remind him how well he got along with
them and that they would like to see him study at their
university. Through Facebook, as well as phone calls
and e-mail, Paul stays in touch with the agrology com-
munity at that institution and decides to pursue a sum-mer program there.
What is it?Facebook is a social networking site where users interact througha constantly evolving set o networks based on college or univer-
sity, riendships, interest groups, avorite movies, and other criteria.
Since ELI rst wrote about the site in August 2006 (see ), it has
undergone signicant changes. Foremost among these changes is
that anyone can now join: users no longer need to be aliatedas
a student, alum, aculty, or stawith an institution o higher educa-
tion. Where Facebook networks ormerly centered on colleges and
universities, the site now oers networks based on location (cities or
towns), workplace, high school, or college or university. Facebook
oers a long and growing list o eatures, as well as tools to tie the
sites unctions into other Web-based applications. With the addedunctionality, Facebook users have ar more power to create and
share online identities and to use the site to locate and interact with
other users. Added to this fexibility is what some believe is one o
the industrys strongest, most detailed privacy policies, one that
puts unprecedented control into users hands to determine who
can see their inormation and what they can do with it.
Whos doing it?Some estimates indicate that upwards o 8090 percent o U.S.
college students have proles on Facebook. At the same time, the
changes to the site have drawn in tens o thousands o new users
seeking networking opportunities based on personal or proes-sional interests or on where they live. In addition, many teenagers
who tended to avor MySpacehave begun creating Facebook
proles. Given that Facebook is the preerred social network
among college students, allowing high school students to join
means that by the time they enroll as college reshmen, many
students will already have years o experience with Facebook.
When they arrive on a college or university campus, all they need
to do is join that institutions network.
How does it work?Facebook unctions on a relationship model, based on riends and
network membership. When users register, they select a category
o network, such as workplace or college, and then choose rom a
list o available networks in that category. Users can be members
o multiple networks and, with some restrictions, can change net-
works. Based on mutual agreement, users can become riends,
and this designation dictates how certain unctions work.
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Facebook users have a wide range o tools at their disposal. For
example, users can upload an unlimited number o pictures. A
git eature lets users send clip-art images with short messages
attached. Another tool lets users search the contacts list o e-mail
accounts, looking or other users who have proles in Facebook.
For all o the various tools and eatures, users have the ability todecide who has access to specic inormation and who is permit-
ted to take certain actions. Beginning with the prole page, users
can decide which o the elements are displayed and to whom.
A phone number, or example, can either be included or not in a
prole, and, i so, can be restricted so that only riends can see it.
Another setting lets users speciy who is allowed to see their pro-
le in search resultsproles can be open to anyone, to users in
some or all o the users networks, or only to riends. When users
take specic actions, such as updating their prole picture or add-
ing someone as a riend, these changesdepending on the pri-
vacy settingscan be ed to other users proles as News Feeds.
At the same time, users can decide how many and what kinds o
News Feeds their home page will display.
Why is it signifcant?With the changes it has instituted, Facebook has redened what
social networking is all about. In a sense, Facebook has grown
beyond social networking into a new kind o portal, giving users
broad control over what they see and how they see it. The appli-
cation is still undamentally about relationships and the always-
changing networks among individuals, but these relationships are
increasingly based on proessional interests, political activities,
and other connections that are not strictly social. The means o
communicatione-mail, cell phones, instant messaginghave
prolierated to the point o saturation. Facebook lets people assert
control over this food o communication. Facebook turned con-
siderable control over to users, and results suggest that they are
willing to take the time to understand and use a broad range o
privacy settings.
What are the downsides?Being able to control access to personal inormation does not
necessarily imply an understanding about the waysboth good
and badthat the inormation might be used. Facebook lets
users make decisions that many o them may lack the judgment
to make well. Moreover, users who learn the online ropes using
Facebook might come away with misconceptions about howother Web sites work and the amount o control users have over
private inormation.
Facebook is ar rom the only social networking site, and i some-
one decides to switch to another site, that user must create an
entirely new online persona, one based on the available networks
and users o the new site. Another concern is that the actions and
activities on the site may lack substance. Keeping in touch with
a circle o riends and colleagues is ne, but i Facebook enables
trite, supercial interaction, there is little educational value. Users
control how the records o their activities are shared, but what
would happen i Facebook decided to mine the vast amounts o
data it collects? Data-mining projects typically promise improved
user experiences, but they also raise important questions about
appropriate use.
Where is it going?Social networking applications are here to stay, though as sites
like Facebook continue to evolve, so too does the denition o
social networking. Facebook has evolved rom a airly sel-con-
tained networking tool to an application that ties in to other sites,
such as Flickr and e-mail applications, using RSS eeds and other
technologies. We might one day see unctional interaction among
social networking sites. Facebooks integration with cell phones
the ability to browse the site or upload photos rom a phone and
communicate with the site through text messagesmoves the
notion o social networking away rom computers and into the
realm o an always on application. The interesting question is
whether expanded access and a growing number o unctionswill lead users into more substantive activities on the site. Face-
book may become a channel or dialogue and a destination or
people interested in learning about or sharing inormation on
current issues. In addition, the site oers Facebook Flyerspaid
advertisements created by users that are shown only to mem-
bers o networks selected by the user. In this way, a campus can
advertise jobs, a campus election, or other activities to students
at that institution or perhaps also at nearby institutions. Online
ads increasingly target narrow audiences, and Facebook is part
o this trend.
What are the implications orteaching and learning?Classroom and lecture-based experiences are an important part
o higher education, but so are the relationships students cultivate
with one another and with aculty. Facebooks structure encour-
ages users to view relationships in a broad context o learning,
even as aliations changerom high school, to college, to gradu-
ate school, to the workplace. By opening itsel to vir tually anyone,
Facebook has become a model or how communitieso learn-
ers, o workers, o any group with a common interestcan come
together, dene standards or interaction, and collaboratively cre-
ate an environment that suits the needs o the members. For many,
a central part o the college years is learning to beexperiment-ing with dierent personas, engaging with a variety o groups, and
developing a set o core values. By allowing users a range o tools
to negotiate and inhabit online networks, Facebook and sites like it
can be an important part o this developmental process.