Blog #17: Summarize today's articles

We are starting a new section of our class now. This new section is based on FaceBook and MySpace. So today we began reading articles about FaceBook and MySpace. Our first article was titled, “Colleges Scan FaceBook During Admissions.” Some students in my classes did not believe that they should be held responsible for what they put on their MySpace or FaceBook pages by colleges. In fact, most of the students in my class thought that colleges and universities looking at their pages was unfair.

Then I told them about two stories regarding social networking sites. One story was about a former friend of mine that was a real party animal when he was in college. Once he graduated, he got a great job and moved away. However, he did not change his partying habits. One day, after a particularly wild party, he went to work with a dreadful hangover. He announced on his page that he was quite unable to give 100% of himself at work that day because he was pretty hungover. The problem there was that he was AT work. It was only about an hour later that he was called into the boss’s office to discuss his inability to function at work and the fact that he had made such a public announcement. This led to a new discussion about how to set FaceBook and MySpace pages to private. However, this also caused several students to point out that friends of friends can see a private page. Thus, there really is NO private page and everything on FaceBook or MySpace could be fair game for employers, colleges, and universities.

A second article we read was titled “Jury Out on FaceBook’s Impact on Grades.” I think the most interesting thing about this article was the discussion regarding whether or not users spend too much time on FaceBook or MySpace. Some students pointed out that people can get distracted by the applications or games on these sites and that it can feel addictive. This led to an interesting discussion over what applications or games are most popular and who spends how much time doing what on FaceBook or MySpace.

The next article we read was “FaceBook Sparks Suspicion.” This article was about how FaceBook (and probably MySpace too) can cause problems or challenge some relationships. Lots of students had experiences to share in this regard. They talked about how one person says something on your wall, and then someone else comments on it, and then the boyfriend or girlfriend reads it and gets all out of shape because it looks like the other one is flirting. It’s all about suspicion.

The last article we read was “Does FaceBook Replace Face Time or Enhance It?” I don’t know how everyone feels about this. It seems like the discussion on this article got blended in with the earlier article about FaceBook’s impact on grades. Ultimately, students concluded that if they were spending time on FaceBook or MySpace playing games or chatting, they were using time that they could be using for studying instead. Not everyone thought that was a bad thing. Mostly they just made that conclusion. I’m pretty sure that there were no students who said they were willing to give up their FaceBook or MySpace time and devote it to studying instead.