Facebook Reveals More Than Expected

As of Dec. 2005, Facebook, a social networking website popular among college students, had the largest number of registered users among college focused sites. With over 7.5 million registered accounts. It's no wonder there is concern among EMU faculty and staff.

It was originally developed for university students and faculty, but has recently expanded to include high schools and corporate and geographic communities. Facebook gains an additional 20,000 new accounts daily and is the number one site for photos, with 2.3 million uploaded every day. It is also the seventh most visited site in the US, according to comScore's Media Metrix.

EMU students are certainly no stranger to Facebook and have joined the growing number of students networking through the site with 699 users. Anyone can join the EMU network on Facebook, as long as they have valid and working EMU email address.

With such a large percentage of the student population on Facebook, there have been many discussions within the faculty circle over its impact on the community. Recently, Professor Beth Aracena, Associate Dean of Curriculum, invited Professor Lara Scott and Dr. Mark Metzler-Sawin to lead a Tuesday luncheon for EMU faculty and staff to discuss new media on the internet. Professor Sawin's job was to cover Facebook and Youtube. Professor Scott covered MySpace. The idea of the luncheon was to inform the EMU faculty about new internet entities students are using that may be unfamiliar.

According to Professor Sawin, his job was to walk the faculty through the site. He said, "I gave a general overview, taking them to my page, showing them briefly how one can set up a page, and then showing them that once you're on a network you can look at the pages of the other folks also on it." When asked if the rumor was true that he was teaching the administration how to spy on students via Facebook, Sawin answered "yes and no." What he stressed to the group, however, was how Facebook has caused him to see his students in a more rounded and complete way. He said, "Generally, I know students only through my classroom. So, if a student isn't especially good at, or doesn't especially care about history, that's my only knowledge of them. But when I go to Facebook and check out their page, I see that they're interested in all sorts of things--they're involved in singing or theater, they're working at such and such a place, and there they are in their photo albums hanging out with their friends, behaving just as I remember behaving when I was 18-22 years old. In this way, Facebook is very humanizing."

EMU's faculty and staff aren't the only ones getting involved in the Facebook network. In the fall of 2005, Penn State clinched their first Big 10 title in 11 years after defeating Ohio State, and the students rushed the field in excitement. Campus police stormed in to try and maintain control and identify participants; however, this proved to be rather difficult. It wasn't until they looked on Facebook in search of the culprits and found a photo album entitled "I rushed the field after the OSU game and lived" that they found the guilty offenders helpfully tagged in each of the pictures.

When students at George Washington University heard similar rumors, that their campus police were using Facebook to find out about parties, they posted information about an upcoming drinking party all over the site as a trap. When the police arrived they found shot glasses full of chocolate cake and Solo cups full of frosting. As students exalted at the success of their plan, the campus police denied using Facebook as a source for party information. An article in US News and World Report recently investigated businesses using Facebook to evaluate potential employees. In the study, a reported 40 percent of employers would use Facebook to spy on potential employees; some employers even admitted turning away candidates because of negative Facebook content. A study at the University of Dayton revealed a growing difference between student and employer opinions on the use of the web. Students view Facebook as a space for privacy that presents an opportunity to socialize with friends. Employers see the internet as "an informational free-for-all." Many employers, however, have not even heard of Facebook, and even more do not believe in exploiting potential employees because of it. Researchers note that it is government recruiters and educators who tend to use it when hiring.

Well known EMU senior Eric Trinka is known for refraining from opening a Facebook account due to potential misuse, as well as its focus on telling the rest of the world how important your own life is. He said, "My honest opinion about Facebook is that it's a great resource for keeping friends connected, but like any other form of technology the amount of good it is capable of in the hands of well-intentioned users equals the amount of potential for misuse." According to Eric, his future occupation as an educator is too important to subject it to pictures that could be found on friend's sites. "I'm not saying that I have bad friends," Eric commented, "however, as an educator, I feel I must hold myself to a different set of standards than other students."

23rd President Adlai E. Stevenson held that on this shrunken globe, men can no longer live as strangers. Today, the internet certainly feeds off of this thought. Websites such as Facebook inspire and create connections across the globe with wall posts, private messages, photos, and the infamous "poke." While it's important to remember moderation and responsibility in all Internet use, there is no stopping its growth. EMU's own professors even enjoy using it from time to time. "Let's face it," Sawin admitted, "it's kind of fun--it's another way to stay in touch with people you know and care about. It's also another way to procrastinate which is something faculty and students both can appreciate as they're staring a pile of academic work in the face." And later, "Then there's poking. I don't poke. I don't know what it means and it sounds a bit shady. Actually that's not entirely true. Conrad Gross poked me once and I poked him back; I assumed he deserved it."