August 19th, 2009
If FaceBook is a "must-use", where does that leave us?
Yesterday I read with interest that Facebook has become a “must-use” application. The San Francisco Chronicle article noted that
As for the marketplace, I suspect that, as eBay came to dominate auctions, and Amazon dominates books, Facebook is about to become the dominant social networking platform. That means a goodbye to MySpace, which will remain important but only as sort of an online jail that keeps its downscale users safely off Facebook.
Crudely put, perhaps, but I’m inclined to agree. Even the students in our high school who had been remarkably loyal MySpace users largely seem to be switching to Facebook as their social network of choice. Local bands still have a presence and following on MySpace, but the real communication seems to happen in it’s upscale cousin.
Again, as described in the Chronicle article,
The purchase of FriendFeed is but a sideshow in Facebook’s drive to make itself a must-use social networking site, but it does show the lengths the company is willing to go to become king of all social media.
Facebook’s aspirations aside, if Facebook is truly becoming a “must-use” application, where does that leave our students, teachers, and staff who sit behind content filters where Facebook is blocked? There aren’t many of us who allow the social network past our filters, but are we cutting off legitimate communication?
Obviously we’re cutting off plenty of plain old socializing that has no place in schools. We’re cutting off the potential for cyber-bullying, cheating, and plenty of other illegitimate uses. However, if this is the medium of choice for parents and the vast majority of people who use computers in our schools, are we doing a disservice by blocking it?
I don’t think so, since most of us allow access to email and even custom internal social networks. However, every time I see new evidence that social media in general (and Facebook in particular) is becoming the dominant means of communication in our culture, I can’t help but wonder if our content filtering needs to be a bit more enlightened. Alternatively, the social networks we create need to be more compelling, making their controlled environments attractive and friendly for our constituents.
This year, I’m perfectly happy rolling out Google Apps and making better use of our SIS to reach out to parents. Where will we be in a year or two, though, given how quickly social media have evolved even in the last year?
Out of curiosity, what is your ratio of email messages to messages received via social media (Facebook wall posts, messages, Twitter replies and DMs, etc.)? Consider what this ratio was a year ago. So where does that leave us?
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Follow Chris Dawson on Twitter! Christopher Dawson is the technology director for the Athol-Royalston School District in northern Massachusetts and a member of the Internet Press Guild. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations, but always keep in mind that the opinions expressed here are his own and not those of his daytime employer, even if he talks incessantly about his day job.
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