«You’ve Just Been Poked » The Strange World of Social Networking Sites

My Spidey Senses Are Telling Me Something

I might as well come clean right off the bat. This isn’t going to be a post that celebrates the many merits of social networking sites. Yes folks, I’m getting ready for another rant. Put on your seatbelts.

Although I created a Facebook page a year and a half ago, I did it against my own better judgement. Some of my colleagues were getting into it and kept sending me emails to join. So, I did. However, there was always this little voice in the back of my head asking questions like: “Do I really want to be sharing all of this personal information with friends, acquaintances and whoever might be on their lists of friends?”, or “Why does this feel so much like high school?” and finally, “Do I actually have the time to keep up with this new tool?”

The Lowdown on Social Networking Sites

Myspace was the first of the really popular social networking sites. It would appear that it is no longer as popular as it once was. Facebook has overtaken it as the number one SNS. Apparently, though, it has added more privacy protections than Facebook.

Facebook appears to now be the most popular SNS for high schoolers and university students. It has very good name recognition and is quite user-friendly.

Classmates is best for keeping in touch with your pals from high school. I signed up for Classmates two years ago as I was on the organizing committee for my 20th high school reunion. I haven’t really used it since.

Bebo is an acronym for “Blog Early Blog Often”. From what I gather, it is more for high school kids than the rest of us. According to various sources, it is for younger users and has caught on more in Europe than North America.

LinkedIn is more appealing to me as it is mainly for adults wishing to build business and professional networks for the purpose of career and employment connections. I had a former colleague invite me to join, but I never got around to signing up.

My Family is a good way for family and friends to stay in contact, particularly for family reunions. It describes itself as a “private web space for stories, photos, videos and events”. I can see this site being really appealing for those people who want to stay in touch with family, but who don’t want all of their family’s personal information on public display.

Of course, these are just a few of the dozens of social networking sites out there. For a more detailed list, check out some of the more well-known sites on this Wikipedia list.

Social Networking – Hip Hip Hooray!

Just to prove that I’m not totally down on SNS, I have compiled a list of their general benefits and useful applications. With Social Networking Sites, you can:

*Stay in touch with friends and family, especially ones who don’t live in your city, province or country.
*Get in touch with old friends with whom you have lost contact.
*Create a fun and social place to share info, hobbies, pictures and videos.
*Expand your circle of friends through mutual friends.
*“Find support networks for a range of needs” according to Lamb and Johnson. Those needs could be of the professional (teacher-librarians) or personal (cancer survivors) kind.
*Participate as they are virtually free – in most cases, all you need is an Internet connection. Therefore, cash-strapped schools and school districts would not be excluded from this technology.

The Downside of Social Networking Sites

Whether social networking sites are used for personal or professional purposes, users should be aware of these following shortcomings:

*Too much of our personal information is stored and accessible on these sites. There are significant threats to users’ privacy due to hacking and identity theft. In the article,Millions warned of dangers of social networking sites surveys indicated that almost two-thirds of respondents indicated “they had never considered that information they put online now might be permanent and could be accessed years into the future”. Many people do not understand the concept that you can never fully erase something that you put online. Even after I shut down my Facebook page last year, all I had to do to reactivate it was sign on again. In fact, it is probably easier to erase that tattoo you got when you were 20 than it is to erase your digital footprint left behind in social networking sites.

*Do we really want to be promoting social networking sites with kids, whose judgement is still developing? It is common knowledge that employers now use Facebook to find the real dirt on potential employees. According to Kelley Weldin, who writes in her article Beware of Facebook Pitfalls, “sixty percent of employers and seventy- five percent of job recruiters have used Facebook to get further information on potential employees”.

*Current popular social networking sites seem more geared for teens and college-age students. In fact, they seem quite juvenile. In the article, Who’s pressing your buttons on Facebook? “you can “poke” people, or indeed “high five” them, even “butt slap” them – it’s all too easy to imagine you’re on an American college campus.”

*It is not appropriate for teachers to have students as friends on their social network page. More and more, teachers’ unions actually have to tell teachers not to do this! K-12 teachers are expected to maintain appropriate relationships with students in the real world and this shouldn’t be any different in the cyberworld. Already, we are seeing evidence of inappropriate relationships between teachers and students in cyberspace.

*Social Networking sites can easily become addictive ‘time suckers’. One page leads you to a link and then another link and there is no end. Is it really essential that you find out RIGHT NOW who has added whom to which friend list or who has added a fun, new application (such as a virtual gift or an online quiz) to their Facebook page?

*There is something inauthentic about social networking sites. Who has 300 friends with whom they need to keep up contact on a regular basis? It is very superficial. In Who’s Pressing Your Buttons on Facebook, the author suggests that “Social networking will dilute real-life relationships; we will swap handshakes and hugs for keystrokes”. Real friendships take face-to-face time to develop and nurture. What happened to the intimacy of friendship? Better still, why do friendships need to be so public?

*How much of what you actually see on SNS is real? Most people fib on their resumes – the same could be said for SNS.

*We need to ask ourselves what is the real purpose of social networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace? What are the stated claims versus the actual impact? Is it just a means for marketers to identify or track potential customers?

Social Networking Uses for Educators

Despite the numerous disadvantages of social networking sites that I have discussed in this post, there ARE some potential positive uses of SNS in education.

The TeacherLibrarianNing, created by Joyce Valenza, “is an online community comprising more than 1,000 members, primarily teacher-librarians” where T-Ls can “read discussions, post comments and questions, and participate in various forums”.

According to Wikipedia, LibraryThing “is a prominent social cataloging web application for storing and sharing personal library catalogs and book lists”. Users, or thingamabrarians, “can catalog personal collections, keep reading lists, and meet other users who have the same books”. This SNS has great potential for teachers and teacher-librarians to share professional literature as well as recommended titles for students.

Along the same line is Goodreads, a “social cataloguing website” that “permits individuals to sign up and register books to create their library catalogs and reading lists.” Users can also see what their friends are reading, can recommend books and can keep track of what they have read or what they would like to read. This site looks like it would be good to recommend to students for their personal use.

Another social cataloging application that I have already added to my blog is Shelfari. According to Wikipedia “Shelfari users build virtual bookshelves of the titles they own or have read, and can rate, review, tag, and discuss their books”.

Implications for Teaching and Learning

Social networking sites fulfill many needs for our students: they feel involved and that they belong to part of a larger community, they have a voice and a real audience and are able to express themselves relatively freely. However, educators need to be able to teach students how to be safe and effective online when using social networking sites. According to Lamb and Johnson, we need to:

*Model positive and appropriate behaviour when using social networking
*Discuss time management and multi tasking
*Help students to deal with information overload
*Teach students how to critically evaluate information
*Encourage kids to talk about their social networking experiences
*Help students to be responsible and ethical when making decisions about social networking

So, social networking (or some future form of it) is probably here to stay. As an engaged educator, I will continue to critically examine and evaluate the potential uses and disadvantages of social networking as they apply to me and my students.

Articles Cited

Harris, K. (2008). Using Social Networking Sites as Student Engagement Tools. Diverse issues in higher education, 25(18), 40.

Lamb, A. & Johnson, L. (2006). Want to be my "friend"? what you need to know about social technologies. Teacher Librarian, 34(1),55-59.

Rosenfeld, E. (2008). Expanding your professional network with Nings. Teacher Librarian, 35(3),60.