Facebook Revolution: The Impact of Facebook and Other Online Communities

1. Diversity College Facebook.com Revolution:The Impact of Facebook.com and Other Online Communities Courtney Bazan Victoria Farris Julie Silverstein Amber Ulmer Diversity College ~Where learning and enthusiasm meet.

2. Welcome Class of 2010!!

3. Make Some Noise If… • You have read a newspaper this week. • You read a book for fun this week. • You know what Facebook.com is. • You have been on Facebook.com this week.

4. Diversity College Mission Statement “Diversity College is the principal research and graduate institution of the state of Illinois. In the spirit of its land-grant heritage, the college is committed to the creation and dissemination of knowledge to improve the lives of its students and Illinois citizens in their full social, economic, and cultural diversity. 
Diversity College offers a competitive and intellectually challenging experience for its students in degree programs from the baccalaureate level through the doctorate. Undergraduate education, with a foundation in the liberal arts and sciences that guides the intellectual and ethical development of the university's students, continues to be central to its teaching mission. Specifically, we prepare women and men for a better life by developing intellectual curiosity, critical thinking and decision-making, commitments to health and wellness, communication skills, technology skills, aesthetic appreciation, respect for human diversity, environmental stewardship, responsible citizenship in the global community, and an appreciation for the intellectual heritage of humankind.” (UMF.edu, Umaine.edu)

5. Facebook.com Overview • Background • Founded in February 2004 by Harvard sophomore, Mark Zuckerberg. • In November of 2004 there were more than 1 million registered users. • December 2005 network has expanded to 2,000+ higher education institutions totaling 11 million users worldwide. • Why was Facebook.com created? • To foster a social network throughout the residential community in response to students’ need for out-of-class interaction. (Wikipedia.org)

6. Let’s Hear Your Thoughts… Why do YOU have a Facebook.com profile?? (Audience Participation)

7. Why do DC students make Facebook.com profiles? “I don’t know why I like Facebook, but it’s cool. I’ve met a lot of people from my classes… and it helps me procrastinate!” • James Lawrence, Sophomore • “For me, Facebook helps me keep in touch with my High School friends, I miss them so much!” • Komal Marow, Senior

8. Why do DC students make Facebook.com profiles? • “I like sharing pictures and seeing my friends’ pictures.” • Janella Wright, First-Year Student “It’s a great way to hear about upcoming events on campus! My RA is always posting programs and letting us know what’s going on around campus.” • Mark Spangle, Junior

9. Things you can do with Facebook.com Share Interests Advertise Programs and Events Find Classmates Learn More About DC ShareMemories Meet New People Keep In Touch With Friends Find A Study Buddy Learn About Clubs

10. Did You Know?? • Did you know that by entering your class schedule, you can find classmates for homework help or studying? Just click on the class, and Facebook.com will show you all the other students who have listed the same class! • Did you know that by listing your club or organization as a group on Facebook.com, you can send messages about upcoming events?

11. Things To Be Aware Of… • Personal Safety: • Remember that all information on Facebook.com is public. Anyone can view or access your profile. • You may not want everyone to see your screen name, e-mail address or cell phone number. Use caution when posting. • Personal Reputation: • Your profile is a direct reflection of you! • Would you want your Grandmother to see the information in your profile?

12. Non-Student Use of Facebook.com • Faculty and Staff have the ability to have accounts on Facebook.com. • The Faculty and Staff at Diversity College will not be searching for student code violations, but if they come across information or are made aware of anything that shows evidence of a code violation, the situation will be addressed. • Again, you are responsible for the information you post, or allow to be posted on Facebook.com.

13. Getting Involved Through Facebook.com • Check out your Residence Hall community on Facebook.com to learn about upcoming programs and information. • Under the search tab, enter the following name for your building: • Stella Hall -- Granger House • Banks Tower -- Johnson Tower • Add the building name to your friends list, and keep checking back for updates and messages from your Hall Director!! • You can also find Student Government Association on Facebook.com at: Diversity SGA • For all you Commuter Students, check out “Diversity Commuter” on Facebook.com for upcoming events!

14. Making the Most of Facebook.com • To maximize your experience at Diversity College use Facebook.com to connect with classmates, friends, and your virtual campus community. • Facebook.com can be a great resource for academic, social, cultural, and involvement opportunities. • Remember to be aware that your Facebook.com profile is a representation of you. • Represent yourself well, have fun but be appropriate!

15. Welcome Class of 2010!! Have a safe and enjoyable experience here at Diversity College! See you in the Fall!

16. Why This is Important for Orientation • What you have just seen is the recommended presentation about Facebook.com that can be offered to incoming students during New Student Orientation. • Since it’s implementation, Facebook.com has become an extremely popular virtual community. Since this affects so many of our students, we believe it is important that students know the positive uses for Facebook.com as well as the dangers and concerns involved with it.

17. Why This is Important for Orientation • According to statistics, 85% of students use Facebook.com • Out of 20,000 students at DC, this would mean that 17,800 actively use Facebook.com • With an entering class of 6,000 students, these statistics tell us that 5,100 of them will soon join Facebook.com, if they haven’t done so already • Orientation gives us a captive audience to be able to begin educating students about the realities of Facebook.com (Arrington, 2005)

18. Overview of Facebook.com If you are unfamiliar with Facebook.com, it is a virtual community that was created by a student at Harvard College in 2004. The website stemmed from the students’ need for interaction outside of class. It was created as a way to foster a social network throughout the residential community at Harvard. The program quickly became so popular that it spread to other colleges and universities. Due to the instant success and demand of Facebook.com, the creator left Harvard and now manages the website full-time in California. (wikipedia.org)

19. Overview of Facebook.com • How it works: • Anyone with an e-mail address ending in “.edu” can go to www.Facebook.com and register for a free account. This includes faculty, staff, students and alumni from participating institutions. • Currently there are over 2000 institutions represented from all 50 states and 20 countries on Facebook.com. There are 88 institutions from Illinois alone! This number increases regularly. • Once you are registered for an account you are given a profile. You can then choose to add information, pictures and other various information to this profile, if you’d like. (Facebook.com, Wikipedia.org)

20. Overview of Facebook.com Some examples of information you can include in a Facebook.com profile: • Where you live -- Sexual orientation • Cell phone number -- General interests • AIM screen name -- Classes you are enrolled in • Relationship status -- Clubs and Jobs • Political views -- Favorite books • Favorite music -- And lots more! (Facebook.com)

21. Overview of Facebook.com Connecting with Others: • One of the most unique features about Facebook.com is that anytime you add something to your profile it becomes a link to other profiles of students at your university that have the same word in their profile. Therefore, it is easy to find people who live in the same building as you, attend the same classes, or even share some of the same interests. • Facebook.com has the ability to join and create “groups” based on common interests. Each group has it’s own “home page,” which allows members of that group to post messages to a message board for everyone to see. It is also easy to the profiles of all the members of a specific “group” so that students can contact each other individually if they want. (Facebook.com)

22. Sample Facebook Profile of Facebook.com

23. Overview of Facebook.com There are many different aspects of Facebook.com, both positive and negative. It was started with the intent of creating a virtual community that could enhance students’ experiences by developing out of class relationships. Keeping that in mind, we will begin by touching on some of those positive aspects.

24. Positive Aspects of Facebook.com Facebook.com was created with the intention of enhancing a sense of community for students at Harvard; this is something that has continued on a larger scale. Facebook.com can help students interact and get to know one another; it can help students find opportunities for involvement and leadership, someone to study with, or other students in their residence hall. Such community building is known to be very supportive for students in their development. According to Astin’s theory of student involvement, a student’s peer group is the most influential group on that student’s development. Student Affairs practitioners should embrace the opportunity to create strong peer groups in order to support the development of students in college. (Stage & Dennells, 2000)

25. Positive Aspects of Facebook.com Why is Connecting with Others Important for Students? • Facebook.com Could be helpful for first year students who are going through the transition to college. According to Scholossberg, networks of friends are considered an important social support that will help students transition smoothly. • According to developmental theorist Erikson, early adulthood is an important time for individuals to develop intimate relationships. Facebook.com can be used as a mechanism to meet people with common interests that are in close proximity, which might lead to more intimate relationships with each other • “I met my boyfriend in a group that I joined called ‘Independent Movie Fans.’ I was surprised to see how many other people at my school like independent movies! I thought Jack was cute from his profile so I messaged him to say hi. We’ve been dating for 4 months now!” --Jill Butner, Sophomore (Evans, Forney, & Guido-DiBrito, 1998, Santrock, 2002)

26. Why Do Students Build Profiles? Identity Development: • When a student sets up a Facebook.com account they create a personalized “profile” with any of the information previously shown. Students have the option of uploading a picture to the website to be seen as their “face” by anyone and uploading as many pictures as they want to online “albums” that people who have access to their whole profile can view. It is optional to fill in any of these components of a Facebook.com profile; the only required fields are name, school e-mail address and status at the institution. • By personalizing this information, students are portraying their unique personalities to anyone who has a Facebook.com account. This has become a very popular way for students to express themselves.

27. Why Do Students Build Profiles? Why is Identity Development Important? • According to Chickering’s theory of identity development, establishing identity is an important aspect of student development. Identity would include comfort with one’s body and appearance, comfort with gender and sexual orientation, as well as establishing a sense of one’s social and cultural belongingness By creating these Facebook.com profiles, students are able to develop pride in various aspects of their identity that they choose to portray to their online friends. (Evans, et al., 1998)

28. Why Do Students Build Profiles? Why is Identity Development Important? • Pride in identity can be especially important to members of a minority social group, such as students who identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual (GLB). Facebook.com profiles enable people to express interest in members of the same sex. This has been comforting to some members of the GLB community who are in the process of coming out. According to Cass’s model of homosexual identity formation, when students are going through stages four and five of the coming out process, they tend to put a positive connotation on homosexual identity. During these stages, students often have more contact with other GLB people and enjoy being publicly and vocally “out”. This Facebook.com feature helps these students find other members of the GLB community at their school as well as declaring their own sexual orientation in their profile. • “Being out on the Facebook is a statement, just like coming out face-to-face. It has the same value.” - Princeton University student Robert Kennelley (Evans, et al., 1998, Advocate, 2005)

29. Facebook.com as a Concern Facebook.com was created and intended for social interaction, meeting new people, and exploring one’s interests. However, with the many positive aspects of Facebook.com there are also negative aspects and safety concerns. We will now be addressing these issues.

30. How & Why Facebook.com is a Concern Too Much Information: • Many students are posting personal information such as cell phone numbers, addresses and Instant Messenger screen names on Facebook. Why this is a safety concern: • MySpace.com, a similar Web site where individuals often post personal information, was found to be the provider of information for two men who sexually assaulted two young women; they were able to track the individuals based on the Web site. • Incidents of cyber-stalking (individuals using websites in order to find information on particular people) have been reported on college campuses. (Williams, 2006, Read, 2006)

31. How & Why Facebook.com is a Concern Many students have not been taught about Internet privacy: • Henry Rhone, vice provost at Virginia Commonwealth University, comments: “Ten years ago, college was the first introduction to computers for a lot of students, but now they have computers in their rooms from the time they’re in grade school. Many of them have used Instant Messenger and MySpace for years, and they’ve never had any problems with them, so they just assume that when they’re online, they’re safe.” (Read, 2006, p. A38)

32. Why Tutorial is Necessary Technology is constantly growing and changing; Facebook.com is one strong example of how technology impacts a college community. With the frequent influx of information comes a responsibility for students, faculty, and staff to educate ourselves and others on various aspects of technology.

33. Why Tutorial is Necessary • Diversity College’s Mission Statement states “we prepare women and men for a better life by developing intellectual curiosity, critical thinking and decision-making, commitments to health and wellness, communication skills, technology skills, aesthetic appreciation, respect for human diversity, environmental stewardship, responsible citizenship in the global community, and an appreciation for the intellectual heritage of humankind.” As a way of supporting our mission, a tutorial has been created to educate students on Facebook.com. • Each student is required to take this tutorial prior to logging onto Diversity’s network. Questions are to be answered throughout the tutorial; each student is required to get a B or better before gaining access to the network. By answering questions, this will ensure us that the students are reading and understanding the material.

50. Recommendations • The committee who worked on reviewing the assigned case came from many different offices, including Residence Life, Information Technology Services, Campus Police and Orientation Services. Based on our discussions, the committee has made the following future recommendations. • Our first recommendation is to create a year-long task force to complete the suggestions that will follow. • The task force would be responsible for reviewing the technology policy that was recommended in the tutorial and considering the implementation for such policies. • Another important issue to consider is the idea of educating faculty and staff about Facebook.com and it’s uses and challenges. By doing this, faculty and staff could utilize this resource as another way to reach out to students.