Fred StutzmanThoughts about information, social networks, and privacy

In the past few weeks, there has been much public hand-wringing about Facebook.com, its security and privacy, and the emerging role it is playing on the campuses of our colleges and universities. Indeed, the news stories regarding these topics have turned from a trickle to a solid flow, so it seemed appropriate to share some suggestions regarding how administrators should approach and understand the Facebook.

1. The Facebook isn’t going away. While Facebook.com may not last forever, a service like the Facebook will always be present and useful on a college campus. The logic to this is quite simple: students are forced to renegotiate their social networks every semester. The Facebook supports and answers the student’s information needs. Put simply, our students are curious; they want to know anything and everything about the students around them. If you had the Facebook when you were an undergrad, wouldn’t you have wanted the same?
2. Almost all of your institution’s undergraduates are on the Facebook. I found that 94 percent of UNC’s Freshman class was on the Facebook. Techcrunch reported in November that 85% of all college students were on the Facebook, and surely that number has increased. You can’t fight numbers like this. More importantly, you can’t ignore them.
3. Students are not being cautious regarding their private information in the Facebook. I found that less than 5% of UNC Freshmen on the Facebook protect their accounts from strangers. In a previous study (An Evaluation.., Stutzman, 2005), I asked students their opinions on privacy in Social Networking Communities (Facebook, Friendster, MySpace). I found very mixed results. Students believe they should protect their privacy, but they aren’t actually doing it.
4. Students may do stupid things on the Facebook. Really stupid things. However, aren’t mistakes something we all make? The critical difference I concede is that anything they say or do can be copied from the Facebook and rebroadcast elsewhere. I’ve had numerous conversations with reporters who tell me they do background work with the Facebook. Everyone from the campus police to the Secret Service is looking at the Facebook. The problem is twofold: students may do stupid things, but we don’t want those stupid things to haunt them for the rest of their lives. Criminal records can be expunged; search engine caches may not. We need to create a mindfulness of this possibility.
5. Students are using the Facebook any way they want to. Students create fake groups with funny names, befriend avatars of God and Anchorman Ron Burgundy, and declare they are married to each other when they are not. The Facebook has a distinct culture; students do these things to speak in code or declare insider status. However, most of the time they do it for no reason at all. The point I’m trying to make is don’t analyze it too deeply. You probably don’t understand the languages they blog or IM in, so don’t bother trying to decode the Facebook.
6. Weird, interesting and touching things are happening in the virtual world the Facebook creates on our campuses. An example I find particularly poignant involves the concept of students publicly mourning for passed students. This may make adults uncomfortable, but I believe it truly signifies the worth and value of Facebook and social networking websites to these students.
7. Your campus IT department doesn’t offer anything like the Facebook. What’s more, the Facebook may be doing all sorts of stuff on your campus better than you do. The students message, create study groups, post to bulletin boards, and generally keep in touch inside this Facebook. The students don’t use the webspace you provide them (who wants to design a webpage in the era of push-button blogging), and it annoys them that they have to check school email to hear from their professors (when they have Gmail and Facebook messages). Numerous people have told me that Facebook announcements bring better results than flyering ever has. There are all sorts of examples like these.
8. Back to privacy and security. Why do the students feel so secure sharing their information publicly on this network? I believe the answer is they feel secure in the fact the Facebook represents a (virtual) walled garden. Since they know their parents and siblings and people outside the network can’t see their profiles, they are OK with sharing their information online. Students are trying out their identities. They’re throwing stuff up at the wall (no pun intended) to see what sticks.
9. Since you can’t make Facebook go away, and even if you tried to, you couldn’t, you might as well accept it and deal with it. The fact of the matter is that students need to understand the long view, and they need to understand the importance of the written record. They’ve spent their entire lives online, and they are completely comfortable posting information about themselves online. Now that they’re 18, economic motivations step in, and it is our obligation and duty to protect them. Telling them not to say anything controversial, or forcing them to use privacy settings just won’t cut it – remember, the students who are on the Facebook want to be found and listened to. What they need to understand is the context. They have to understand the need to act now on behalf of the person they’ll be in 4 or 5 or 6 years. Give them that context. Explain to them the value of maintaining a self-image they can be proud of down the road. Work with them on this, not against them – it may be your only chance.
10. Finally, give up on prosecuting your students for the minor violations you find on the Facebook. You’ve read the studies, you know how much they party. Kicking students out of school for posting stuff on the Facebook forces a dangerous endgame – particularly, if you’re going to prosecute one student for a picture with a beer, what happens when everyone who is angry at their suitemate reports that sort of behavior to the campus authorities? I’m not saying to turn a completely blind eye; however, you must exercise extreme caution before going down this troubling road. Be constructive instead of destructive.

I hope you’ve found this list informative. I encourage readers to contribute other ideas and suggestions to the comment thread. For more information on the Facebook, there are numerous posts on my blog, so please feel free to stay a while. Additionally, I provide a list of constantly updated news stories on the Facebook at http://del.icio.us/fstutzman/facebook, which may also be subscribed to as an RSS feed.

Tags: academic, facebook

This entry was posted on Monday, January 23rd, 2006 at 3:56 pm and is filed under Teaching. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.