Facebook and You:

What students at Diversity College need to know

What is Facebook?
According to Facebook.com: Facebook is an online directory that connects people through social networks at schools. Facebook is a way for students to connect with people they know, go to school with, share interests with and more There are two versions of Facebook currently, the original version designed for colleges and universities and a newer version targeted for high school students

Facebook:
Founders:

a brief and tumultuous history

Founded in February 2004

Mark Zuckerberg Eduardo Saverin Dustin Moskovitz Chris Hughes
All were students at Harvard College at the time

Lawsuit from website ConnectU

Alleged that Zuckerberg had stolen the idea while employed by their company

Facebook Today
All four of the original founders left Harvard to pursue Facebook.com full-time in Palo Alto It is estimated that over 2,000 colleges and universities are supported by Facebook and more than 25,000 high schools More than 6 million college student accounts already exist and it is projected that 20,000 profiles are added each day
(Statistics retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_(website) on February 17, 2006)

What current college students are saying about Facebook:

Our team conducted a survey and found:
81% said they use Facebook at least once a day 77% had been contacted by someone they did not know through Facebook 44% felt that Facebook has a negative impact on their academic work The most common advice these students provided for students new to Facebook was:
To be cautious about what information is posted on your profile

Components of Facebook
Personal Profile:
Personal Information Photo Groups Class Schedule Wall

Components of Facebook
Friends
Who can be friends?
From YOUR school, from OTHER schools Current students, alumni/ea, faculty, staff, etc
Anyone who has a abcde@diversity.edu e-mail address can register for Facebook

How do you become friends?

Request an acknowledgment of friend status

Components of Facebook
Details and Social Timeline
Friend Details
How you know this person
Lived together, worked together, organizations/teams, took a course together, summer/study abroad program, went to school together (preschool, elementary school, middle school, high school, college, grad school), family, through a friend, through Facebook, met randomly, hooked up, dated

Social Timeline
Uses friend details to construct a timeline for the user Displays groups, friends and more that the user was connected to through Facebook by year

Components of Facebook
Groups and Groupies
Thousands of groups can be joined by members of Facebook:
I love Harry Potter Procrastinators UniteTomorrow!! Student Government Association @ Diversity College

You can also become a groupie of a group if you know a certain amount of people with membership in that group
The groupie feature can be turned off in the privacy settings

Components of Facebook
Events
Groups and individual Facebook users can create, post and invite others to events:
Johns 20th Birthday Bash Sorority Recruitment Informational Meeting Fusion Hall Council Meeting

Personal invitations can be sent or the event can be listed as open to anyone There is also and RSVP feature for Facebook events

Components of Facebook
Facebook Messages
Internal e-mail-type component of Facebook
Messages can be sent from any Facebook user to another, regardless of school or friend status

Poke Feature
This feature sends a message via Facebook to another user stating that he or she has been poked by that person, then the option to poke back is provided There is no specific purpose to the poke Considered flirting by some, or simply a joke between friends

Components of Facebook
The Facebook Wall
Each individual and group profile can have a wall Essentially a message board where other users can post public messages on a users profile Can be edited by the person whose profile the message is posted The message writers Facebook picture appears next to their message

Components of Facebook
Photo Features:
Profile Photo
Appears on the users profile page, attached to messages and other things the user does on Facebook

My Photo Page
Allows the user to post albums of pictures The user can label the people in the pictures and provide descriptions of what is occurring in the picture The user can also tag the people in the picture, which ties the image to that users profile in an additional photo section

Components of Facebook
Other components:
Advertisment: can be purchased by students or corporations
Generates revenue for Facebook

Pulse Page
Has Top Ten lists generated from the Facebook community and other trend driven features

Facebook: The Good

Its FREE! Thousands of groups
Can help you find others who share your interests, hobbies, major, etc.

Academics
Find students enrolled in your classes to form study groups

Locate friends
From home, high school, and other places who you have lost touch with

Facebook: The Bad

Procrastination Tool
Most students who use Facebook state that it can serve as a distraction from school work and other responsibilities

Feeling of safe and private playground for students

In fact many people other than students can access Facebook profiles

Facebook: The Ugly

Internet Stalking
Personal information such as address, phone number and class schedule can provide many tools to individuals interesting in keeping tabs on someone

Incriminating and questionable photos tagged to your profile by you or others

Schools and police may use as evidence Can be used by employers who are interested in background information

But no one will see it later, right?

Maybemaybe not!
There are companies that are collecting everything that is posted to the internet
Companies could purchase access to such information, allowing pages that have since been removed to still be seen

Other Internet Technologies to be aware of

MySpace, Friendster, XuQa
Similar to Facebook

Livejournal, Blog, and many others

Online journal pages

WebCT, Blackboard
Online component to academics, internet support for courses

AIM, MSN Messenger, etc.

Internet messaging programs

What should I do?

Be smart!
Dont post information you would not be comfortable with strangers having access Dont post information that you would not want your mom, your teachers, the police, etc to see Think about how something could be interpreted, or misinterpreted, by others
It might seem like a joke to you and your friends, but could be seen as serious by others

Dont be afraid to edit or delete things posted to your wall or photos tagged by others

What should I do?

Utilize Facebooks Privacy Settings
3 levels of privacy as well as a custom setting Blocking feature to keep individuals from being able to see your profile or contact you Allows you to control who can view your profile and what aspects of your profile those people can see Features can be turned off, such as the groupie feature and your wall

Diversity College wants you to be safe and have fun!

Diversity College will not police your use of the internet
Butif information is brought forth about activities in violation of school policy or state/federal law, Diversity College is obligated to act

Diversity College asks that you use Facebook and other internet programs and resources for good and not evil

Information for this presentation was found at the following sites:

www.facebook.com www.myspace.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_(website) Survey conducted by Diversity Colleges Facebook Taskforce Also check out Diversity Colleges student conduct code found at: www.diversitycollege.edu