Privacy on Facebook

The sense of privacy in our generation is changing drastically. Online, the issue of privacy is seen as what others are seeing on a user's page or what others may be posting on their page. This is different in the past, in that, before people were more concerned with how their information could be used and abused by the government and banks, etc. (Aliases, creeping, and wall cleaning: Understanding privacy in the age of Facebook) Facebookers are able to find others through "tags" on photos and through posts on one's newsfeed. This is creating a sense of transparency that can be exciting and interesting but not always beneficial. Users onlineoften admit to abusing the privacy policies, going through loopholes found in the tagging of photos to get to user's they may not be friends with and also using false names to be able to look through other people's information. Even so, users still supply large amounts of information. With users admitting to abusing information, it is suprising that they feel exempt to the "creeping" and are not voicing the need for more privacy. In a world where you name, birthday, phone number, email, relationship status, place of residence, hometown, occupation, schooling, posts, photos, interests are all up publicly, companies, fraud, and even stalkers could easily get ahold of this information. Although, with Facebook being more and more a crucial way of communication it is less about not getting on Facebook or having one and more about how we can control the release of information. Being aware of the concerns can help the community and further encourage Facebook creators to change and modify privacy and how it is presented on the site.

The Profile Picture: Judging people through online profiles.

In The Role of Friends’ Appearance and Behavior on Evaluations of Individuals on Facebook, Josh Walther and others propose the effects of getting to know someone through online sources such as Facebook. Onlookers tend to make quick judgements about the profile and the person behind the profile. The pictures posted on one's profile is seen as a direct reflection of who they are and their physical attractiveness. A photo taken with a more physically attractive person, or a post from a physically attractive person can then result in users believing that person is more attractive after the fact, this can also work visa versa. Another judgement that can possibly be made is the type of posts on a one's profile. If the posts are regularly positive, users tend to be predisposed to believe that person's life is put together, again this can be turned around.

Facebook users often believe they have complete control over their "self-image" on their page and how they want to disclose personal information. This may not be completely true, other users have a great influence on the user's "image". Therefore when using Facebook, the amount of information and what detail from other flooding in should be noted. Although, should we be worried about preconceived notions from people barely known to us? Before social networking, experience and face value was solely the source of judgement on a person. We cannot base people's character only on their profile that has been sifted through, posted on and made to perfection by the user, its simply not the true depiction of that person.

Visual Argument

This represents the youngest generation and how eventually we will only find identity in our Facebook page. If you notice, on the computer is her profile picture, and that is the identity of an individual on Facebook. Also notice the "original" photo is black and white, representing the "old" way and the tradition way on connecting: face-to-face. The new color photo represents where our generation is going. We need to evaluate if on-screen is how we want to connect and grow our relationships.

Identity and the Professional World.

Often when thinking of social networks, and who uses them, we think of where it orginated and was made for, college. This was true orginially but now, years past, many of the users that were in college are now graduating and leaving for the professional world. This is concerning to many because of the content on college user's profiles.

Companys like IBM are now researching the use of their employee's facebook and their profiles to see how professional their profiles are. The majority of the time, younger employee who used facebook in college have a less professional facebook, this could be observed in pictures or even statuses. [1] Although this seems like a invasion of privacy we really need to evaluate the concerns of the company.

Recognizing there are good and bad aspects in the professional world for social networking, we have to evaluate them:

Most employee need to begin to feel connection with fellow employees to improve the work place and a social network is definitely something that can help with that. Also, it is good for employees to stay in contact with fellow employees to keep up with projects and other things related to work.
But mainly the companies are worried about the interpersonal content on the websites. Younger users tend to put very personal postings on facebook that could be seen as very unprofessional and could threaten the work environment. With this being said, social networking can have benefits but with the format Facebook has given us, it may not always have a place in the professional realm.

With increasing privacy options, users are being to try to work around the obstacles but usually ignore the process altogether. The identity we are giving on Facebook may not be something we would want our employers to focus on, and so it is questionable if we should limit our use once we begin our career.

directed Blog post 2

Definition of social network:

social network service is an online service, platform, or site that focuses on building and reflecting of social networks or social relations among people, e.g., who share interests and/or activities  (Ellison, Nicole 2007)

With this definition we see that social networks are supposed to build our relationships. Is social networking serving its purpose? On an average a facebook user has 300 friends (Stefanone, et al., 2008), with this statistic being 3 years old the average may have gone up tremendously since then. With this many friends are we able to be interpersonal with all of this, or possibly build a relationship completely based from an online relationship?

In the article “The value of online friends” users were put into an experiment to test user’s relationships that were considered “strong” relationships, (already developed outside of social networking, face-to-face), and weak relationships, (people never met face-to-face). The experiment showed that relationships already developed were more likely to respond and build through facebook, while online based relationships were less likely to respond. Even then, relationships that were newly developing offline were likely to strengthen with help from a online source such as Facebook. Therefore, Facebook is more likely to be used to keep in touch with old friends and help strengthen relationships with new friends.

So to answer our question, yes and no. Yes, social networking can build our relationships that were previous build from face-to-face interaction. This is being said, facebook is not all bad, it may serve the purpose of simply serving to our existing relationship, but in no means should it be our sole interaction with one another. This study showed me how real interaction is so important, because without that initial relationship there is barely anything to base off of online. Social networking should be used to keep up with old buds, and get to know new buds, but not to actually meet friends through the computer screen.

Warrant:Multitasking

Studies from many different universities have been noticing a trend. College students are less interested in their education and classes and more interested in their newsfeed. During lectures students are found on their on their Ipod rather than listening to the guest speaker, Facing Facebook.

In result of this, professors claim there is less "critical thinking" in their student's education. Although some universities encourage technology, is communicating with fellow classmates worth university money that could be used for research and facilities? During classes students tend to have several different windows aside from facebook up while listening during lecture. This causes a lack of focus and therefore students aren't able to create and learn as well as before. This isn't to say there wasn't distractions before, a hidden magazine in a book is a perfect example. The involvement of computer and technology inside of classrooms has definitely created very different habitsand therefore reducing quality.

In a classroom at the University of Colorado, students were asked in they read the New York Times, only a few raised their hands. They were then asked if they logged on facebook that day and all raised their hands, Facing Facebook. Facebook is beginning to be the main domain of college student's internet use. This could be dentrimental to our learning and academic society. With this information, should professional and teachers completely ban facebook in a professional setting? I propose we should simply be able to recognize the negative effects of the overuse of it, and find the appropiate setting to use Facebook.

25 Things I hate about Facebook.

This video is a great depiction of how we waste our time on Facebook. Although Julian makes us laugh, we should also listen to his message. Is it really necessary in our daily lives to have a poke war? We spend countless hours have a virtual life when we could have a real one.