Thing #22

After reviewing both myspace and facebook, my social network of choice is myspace. I have had a myspace account for a few years now (though, I did create a new one for this exercise), and even though facebook may be more user friendly with just a basic layout, I like the many options that are provided to me through myspace. I think it is important that we know about the social networking sites to better understand the type of communications that my students use. When we better understand our students, it is easier to connect with them. In exploring these sites, I saw how many different types of people communicate through social networking. I think it is great that we can find such a diverse group of people in one place.

Of course, with so many in one place, there is bound to be some problems, and this is where I was most shocked. I noticed that on both sites there were children who had profiles. Myspace does not allow for children to have public profiles yet when I went to facebook, there was an 11-year-old with a public profile and I found her profile without even having an account. Her profile was on the home page. I am very concerned with that. Like most young girls, one of her friends was the Jonas Brothers. I clicked on their profile and found a discussion board of extreme mature nature.

For adults, I think myspace had the most useful features. Their search features are more detailed than that of facebook and their personalization of profiles allowed for more uniqueness. I don't think either of these websites had any educational benefit. Though I do believe if there was a more controlled networking site, it would be a great way to communicate with students.