Thing #18

I have been a Myspace user for about 5 years and a Facebook user for 4 years so I was already well-versed in both social networking sites and the features of each. I feel that Facebook far surpasses Myspace at this point with regard to ease of use and in terms of actually creating the social network that users are looking for. Myspace has tried to adopt some of the features of Facebook like status updates and groups, but with much less success in my opinion. Facebook makes it simple to look at friends pictures and posts and to communicate with friends publicly (on their wall) or privately through messages. I often record video messages through Facebook to send to my husband in Afghanistan. There are groups for every conceivable interest and it is easy to invite friends to events or keep track of friends' birthdays. Myspace has similar features but I find them much more tedious to use and the design is cluttered. The one real advantage Myspace has over Facebook is that their music and video features are excellent. Artists can post their work and users can listen or watch at the click of the mouse.

I think teachers need to understand how much the social landscape has changed for their students and how much social interaction occurs through networking sites. Teachers cannot be under the impression that the only important social events in their students lives are happening in the hallways and classrooms anymore. Students relationships (friendships as well as romances) are legitimized by these sites and sometimes only exist through Myspace or Facebook. Bullying and harrassment have become a major problem with children using these sites and teachers need to know the right questions to ask if they get wind of a problem developing between students. Teachers also have a responsibility (in addition to the parents, who clearly bear most of the responsibility) to let their students know how important it is to be safe on the internet by making their social networking sites private, not entering specific personal data like addresses and phonenumbers, and why posting inappropriate pictures can negatively impact their lives at school, work, and personally.

Although I think that the group features of Facebook could be used in a school setting I would be extremely wary of introducing children to these sites without being able to fully monitor their conduct outside of the group created for the class. I think that other web applications like blogs or wikis could serve the same purpose without some of the drawbacks of social networking sites for kids.