Kate - could you link the Age article you told us about yesterday?

I've tried finding it but can't remember what it was specifically about...if you could find it in the online version and post it here I would love to read it!

Hi Amber

Here's a link to the article:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24208226-12332,00.html

Kate

Thanks Kate!

I really related to this quote: "She says universities may risk alienating students with attempts to exploit social networking sites. "At what point is it for free time, not university?" Gregg asks. "Will the students get resentful that the university is invading their space?" "

YES!

My degree is quite small (only 18 people left in our final year) and we have operated more like a highschool class than a university degree, we all know each other intimately and our lecturers & tutors know us very well too, as they've followed our progress through the degree. Most of us have at least one or two of our lecturers added to our facebooks (lecturers have facebook pages!? Apparently so! Perhaps it's a Creative Arts thing ) which actually poses problems on a regular basis. Often when we're on our computers doing a last minute assessment task, and we're all talking to and helping each other through facebook, we forget that our lecturers can see this too, because of the public nature of facebook communications. Several of us have even got into trouble in the past from angry lecturers who have observed us chatting with each other about how much we hate a particular assignment, or how we've only just started it (the night before it is due).

So yes, privacy issues are a concern; university now invades our most private lives! And I know the situation is very similar in other ways for people who have workmates/bosses in their facebook friends list who see things they shouldn't or wouldn't ordinarily see. Privacy in the 21st century is obviously going to be of HUGE & growing concern.

Hi amber, this is so true in many aspects. As an employer i actually sprung one of our employees on facebook while he was suppose to be working. This would not have been possible if i was not one of his facebooks 'friends'.

He has since left and i never did confront him about his 'freelancing' while on the job but did actually check to see if it was a regular thing. May i add we are still facebook 'friends'! LOL

Cheers Fiona.

But what interests me about this is the assumption that chatting on Facebook is some kind of private practice. How did that assumption develop?

I've also been concerned for students when I've seen the way they talk online, as I know they've forgotten how many people can see them. I know of a lecturer who found her way to a slightly unflattering Myspace conversation about uni life because Myspace entries come up on google! Sure, this is socially uncomfortable, but can we really call it an invasion of privacy, if it's about shared use of quite public forums? What do you think?

Kate

I completely agree with you Kate about the privacy issue on facebook and myspace. These sites are public so that everyone can see what everyone else is doing and saying to one another. However, I think they are also designed to make people feel like they are personal and not able to be viewed publicly - a false sense of security! The amount of times the term 'facebook stalking' comes into conversations is alarmingly big. Its quite creepy actually that you can trace someones conversations with other people and that these types of links such as the Home page are even on offer. I dont know about you guys but I hate the home page; i really dont need to know that John and Barry have become friends or that Anna wrote this to Jaquie...Its completly designed to grab your attention and go 'ohhh, and look on that persons sight'. Ive got to admit though I do get hooked at times though, and its so easy to waste a ridiculous amount of time on facebook simply browsing on other peoples pages and photos. But aswell as connecting people it has also disconected people because we now dont even need to call our friends to see how they are or what they are up to, because they can tell us via their status.

I joined facebook in 2006 and I much preferred the format then to now; it didnt have a home page and all these added links and applications werent there to clutter the page. Ive also noticed that so many events are now only publicised on facebook, such as friends partys and birthdays and often if you forgot to browse through your events list (i am shocking at not doing it) then you could easily miss the invitation all together. Whats more interesting is the exclusion of people who arent on facebook. Becasue it is so easy, time effective and free, people who arent on facebook have often not recieved a call or text inviting them, not on purpose but becasue the inviter may just have assumed they were already on facebook.

I definatly try not to go on facebook as much as I used to - i swear it took up soooo much of my time, but it has definatly altered all means of communication theses days.

So true Charlotte; people who aren't on facebook DO get left out of things!

I actually never wanted to join up, but it got to the point where I was missing out on so much socially that I couldn't keep off it any longer. I was annoyed, but now I think I am addicted - I am a regular 'facebook stalker' too, and waste many hours doing so...I seem to get sucked in then one profile leads to another and so on, and you end up going from profile to profile following conversations. It's bizarre.

Kate, you said you have a facebook profile? I'll resist the urge to look you up and add you as a friend but how do you find it?
I'm interested in a few things:
Why did you decide to join facebook, and when was that?
How do you find the layout, profile management tools etc?
Do you use the applications? Which ones, and why?

Oooh, now I sound like the teacher hehe. I'm interested because my mother has also recently joined up and quite likes it as she can look up old schoolfriends, but she finds it difficult to use and doesn't really understand it. Whereas another friend's mother uses it obsessively, her profile is fully decked out, she has over 500 friends and is on at least twice a day...it's incredible!

Hello everyone

OK I just realised that I do need to register to properly interact with this site. I couldn't post a reply to any of these topics without registering, so I retract my previous statement about that!

IN relation to this topic, I agree with all of you basically about everything! I too resisted facebook for a long time, until earlier this year when it was clear I was becoming a social pariah without it! Friends were having events and not inviting me because I didn't have it, people were talking about it constantly, and others were becoming closer friends with everyone else because of it. However I don't necessarily see it as a bad thing. I do think it is helpful to bring people closer together. I certainly don't regret signing up, despite the fact it does take up a lot of my time.

And interestingly the new facebook (the very new version that was released recently) is handy because it doesn't allow all those awful applications on your page, and you can actually choose what and who you want to hear about. You use sliding scales to rate how much you care about events, status updates, photos, relationship statuses, profile changes etc. Furthermore, you can choose the people you want to hear about, and those thaty ou don't want to hear about. I have already customised this on mine! The new facebook originallly annoyed me, but I have come around now to see that it is actually quite handy in that respect. So if you haven't already done so, maybe you should give that a try!

In reference to privacy - I think facebook is much better with this than myspace (although I do not have myspace so may not have the authority to comment!). You can actually have quite stringent privacy settings on facebook if you like....there is no way that people can find your conversations with people through a google search if you have the right settings. Also there is the private chat function for anything that you don't want public. There are some major issues though, like how people's purchases online were being posted as advertising, although I never personally saw this happen on my facebook.

I certainly think that Facebook is not the right forum to be used in university, although other sites may be more handy. It is too personal to use like that - it's hard because it often pushes boundaries of work-social or uni-social...I remember in my last job my boss added me on facebook and I was horrified! I had to add her because there was no way out of it...but at the same time it was so uncomfortable to have her as a 'friend' because my profile, photos, wall posts etc are more of a personal social aspect of my life. I used the privacy settings to allow her only limited access to my profile and features, but it still felt invasive. And yes I used facebook while I was at work, and tried to be careful not to leave evidence, although I must admit I caught evidence of her using at as well (along with all the other employees there!). Facebook is blocked at my current work, which for the most part I am actually glad about. I do find I can get a bit obsessed with it, despite the fact nothing might happen for a day or so! I used to get bored at work and continually check it, but for no reason because nothing would have happened!

Anyway that is my 2c worth! I hope this post works....

Cara

Hi guys,

It has been so interesting to read about all your varied experiences with Facebook. I only signed up last year and have now got the point where I would be a prime candidate to attend a Facebook Addicts Anonymous meeting if such a thing existed (it probably does..)!

I have a little theory about the whole thing and would be interested to hear if any of you agree or have had a similar experience. I spend quite a bit of time on the computer (as I'm sure most of you do) as both my courses rely heavily on online/digital components. The thing that interests me about the way I use Facebook, is that I don't see it as separate, "free" time or as a leisure activity but just something going on in the background while I do other more 'productive' things like uni research, essay writing or designing.

The reality is, of course, that everything then takes double the time it normally would due to the incessant poking and notifying which is constantly averting my attention. I think a lot of social networking sites operate in this way: they seem to just 'slot in' amongst all the other things we use our computers for, significantly impeding on our time in an almost unnoticed way.
For me it's almost as though because I am physically sitting at a computer where work can be done even if I am using Facebook I do not feel as though I am having 'time off' in the same way I would if I was seeing a movie, for example. It's quite a twisted logic, I know!

With relatively new technology like the IPhone becoming more widely owned I can only see these boundaries between work, study and leisure becoming more and more blurred: which, quite frankly, worries me a little! When you think about the way you use Facebook (or any sort of social site for that matter) do you view it in this way too? Or do you see it as a separate thing entirely that you set aside time for??

Hi Cara and Kiara,

I too had a boss add me, Cara! I thought it very strange. To add someone as a friend on facebook suggests you know them in a friendly context, or that you are social equals - for a boss to add you is almost like them 'stepping down' to your level - to admit you want to add someone is almost a humbling act in my opinion. It's like begging someone to play with you at lunchtime so for my boss to stoop down and and request to be my facebook friend felt very odd. There's no way around it though, you have to add them or risk them bringing it up at work and embarassing you futher. Or you'll embarass or even anger them by refusing to add them.

Oooh, Kiara, you've hit the nail on the head for me. I keep facebook running in the background too - HAHA it just ping'd then! What timing! and I procrastinate terribly by wasting time on it. In fact I'm on it right now, when I should be working on a seminar presentation I have due tomorrow. I know I desperately need to finish it, but my brain excuses myself by telling me that I'm simply a click away from actually working on it, which is almost as good as working on it anyway....I mean, it's not as if I'm off watching television! I'm sitting right here, with my books, and if I WANTED to I COULD be finishing my speech off, so it's okay. Ahh, terrible. I am the worst at doing assessments!

My first encounter with Facebook came last year when a colleague (my age) made a big push for me to join, and urged me to take it seriously as professional networking. All her colleagues do it, she assured me, and it's really improved their collegiality. So I felt that first sting of "Oh, I'll be left out, my career will be ruined" etc. and I had a look. But to be honest, after that first look, when I also searched around and found the usual collection of old school friends, old boyfriends (look! he has a beard and a baby!), and a bunch of cousins, I felt like I was stalking people, and I tiptoed quietly away.

Since then I've wondered from time to time why I never went back, but your descriptions have firmed this up for me. There are three reasons: time, time, and time.

I'm already drowning in communication. I barely keep up with friends I really cherish. Balancing family and full time work I have absolutely no time alone. So I discovered that I was strongly resistant to something that could potentially make more demands on me, and I realise I could have all sorts of other experiences out there, and perhaps even contact the Bearded Ex and say "I had babies too", but I don't think I could create a valuable relationship out of that because I'm already Full Up, so I'm happy enough just to have caught that glimpse and to move on.

But I think from your descriptions I'm also learning that I'm not missing out, because like most parents of young children I'm already very home-based. Until 7 year olds birthday parties are only advertised on Facebook, I'm OK. And perhaps I did also feel that I need that work-life separation as much as you do.

(A professional hazard for me is that whenever I'm at the supermarket checkout in my absolutely worst trackpants, and all three of my kids are howling or hitting each other, the checkout worker is inevitably a student I know! I'm just not sure I need the cyber version of this mortification too.)

Here's my question in return: I'm actually quite surprised that you have reservations about the socially levelling aspect of e-communication, particularly in the workplace. Doesn't this enable you to network with your professional peers and superiors, as my colleague claims? Or is it like casual Fridays and workplace drinks -- the informality is a bit of a front?

(And I'm sorry this is so long, but here's my other thought: I found an American blog posting today expressing absolute horror at students calling lecturers by their first names -- is this search for hierarchisation the same thing?)

Kate

Cara's ideas on social status really get to the heart of my question about what is I suspect an Australian paradox -- on the one hand, Cara, you have really strict rules for the social segregation an online medium which you want to share only with people of the same social rank as you, and on the other hand, you strongly reject some fairly ordinary means of distinguishing social rank in the face to face world. Isn't this interesting? I see this again and again in Australians, and to an extent it's something that drew me here -- certainly something I've embraced.

So when I read the American blog discussion about calling lecturers by their full titles, like you I thought: this is ridiculous. But if you read through the comments there's a real range of opinions, and it's interesting that the topic was begun by thinking about what it means if the lecturer concerned is female and African American. Have a read.

So my question about how these online and offline/office environments match up is: is it a case of contradictory rules being set: on the one hand, you want to call your boss by his first name, and on the other hand you don't want him to socialise with you online? And what do we learn from this that's relevant to the future of online learning?

Great post, Cara.

K

Hi all,
i can understand someone logging into facebook on the odd occassion while working in an office environment but my employee was the head chef at our restaurant and was meant to be cooking food not facebooking! Can you see my point?

I have mixed feelings about using facebook. The other day someone long lost school friend contacted me and quite frankly i was not happy about him finding me so i ignored his 'friend invitations'. I have since questioned my usage of this 'social' web tool and have decided to stop after i have completed my report, which is dedicated to this phenonomem. Let's call it a social experiment and see how long i last.

As for the name addressing topic, call me old-fashioned but i still call my old school teachers and several of my friends' parents MR and MRS such and such when i run in to them. I cannot bring myself to use any other reference. To me, in this circumstance anyway, it is respect.

Have a lovely weekend, Fiona.

Hey guys...

I just thought I would mention that this morning as I was getting ready for work, there was a discussion on 96.1 about facebook, and how people are getting annoyed at their parents joining and adding them and all their friends. It was interesting to hear all the people that rang up...the radio host was arguing that Facebook should not be available to people that have children over the age of 15!

Eventhough i do think the whole craze of parents joining and adding everyone is annoying (my friend's mother has added me!), I have to say that it is hugely unfair to block people from using it! I think the difficulty is with people using it for different means and not understanding that others use it for a different purpose that may not be suitable to be viewed by your parents or friend's parents.

Anyway we have already discussed this idea, but I just thought it was interesting that the discussion was on the radio this morning! Sometimes it feels like wherever you go people are only ever talking about Facebook!!! It has gotten to the point that I am amazed to meet people that still don't have it!

Have a great week
Cara