Thing 20: Facebook and Myspace
I have been on MySpace and am currently a Facebook member. I originally had a mySpace teacher page as a way to try to connect with students. I also had no clue about mySpace and wanted an excuse to try it out without the dreaded online dating aspect. I kept the account for one or two school years, only a few students accessed it, mostly to tell me if they were going to miss class. Ultimately, it creeped me out to figure out whether or not to “accept” them as friends because inevitably I had to look at their profile and tended to find things I didn’t like or that made me uncomfortable. It even lead to me emailing one student telling her to remove a particular post or I was going to report it to her parents as being highly inappropriate. She removed me as a “friend” before I could deal with it, much to my relief. I ended up deleting the profile for that very reason - I didn’t want to be in a position to have to make those decisions.
Facebook has been a love hate thing for me. I signed up for it when it was strictly for .edu participants and found it too restrictive compared to mySpace. More recently, I signed up and have had a lot of fun reconnecting with old friends through the site. I even have a facebook icon on my blackberry, so I can be on facebook anywhere, anytime 
I thought I would be against these sites, but I’ve really enjoyed being on facebook and using it as another way to connect with my friends, maintain relationships, and reconnect with old friends I had lost touch with.
Posted by in 03:55:59
