Last night I was at a party where I was talking to this guy I had just met. As we were talking, I mentioned something I saw or read on Facebook, and he said he didn’t know what I was talking about since he didn’t have a Facebook. I looked at him like “What? You don’t have a Facebook?” as if this was the weirdest thing I’d ever heard. I usually just assume everyone of my generation has one or at least knows how to use one. After asking him why he didn’t have one, he just said he doesn’t feel like taking the time to learn how to use it.
This got me thinking…First, since I just assumed everyone has a Facebook, should the use of Facebook be considered as a source one needs to be literate in in today’s society, just like Microsoft Word or Excel? If this is the case, then the guy I was talking to clearly wasn’t literate in these social networking sites. What is to become of him if he ever needs to get a job that requires the use of Facebook or something similar? Second, taking a broader perspective, as society moves on, we have to keep updating what we are literate in while also retaining our old forms of literacy (most of the time). If I was an employer of a company and found out the guy from the party wasn’t literate in Facebook (or any other important site), I am not sure I would hire him; I would think of him as lazy, not wanting to learn a new literacy. I may be taking this a little too far as Facebook really isn’t that important to know how to use, but as new forms of literacy are being invented and as we grow older, I think it’s important that we move with the times and learn how to use whatever it is. I want to be literate in everything I can be, and if it means learning how to use a certain program or whatever, I’m going to learn it so I won’t be that old teacher someday who the class makes fun of because I can’t use a common program that they all know how to navigate easily.
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4 comments:
I think your initial reaction to the guy who didn't have a Facebook is how I would react at first. I find it useful in college to communicate with friends I haven't seen or communicating with fellow classmates. It's just for the simple fact that Facebook is another of communication. It's quick and it suits our society because people don't have a lot of patience!
On the other hand, I don't think it's nessesary for everyone to have a Facebook. If someone were to apply for a job and had a Facebook with some "questioning-type" pictures/statuses/comments than they might not get hired, in that aspect.
I sometimes find Facebook a positive and negative creation. It's very distracting because we constantly need to know what others are doing or let others know what we are doing throughout the day. It both hurts and helps society. I read stuff on Facebook that others have posted, that to me was a very personal statement, and have no idea why people posted it in the first place. I have seen people have full out arguments on Facebook by posting stuff on each others pages or commenting on different statuses. In terms of getting a job, people have to be careful about what they post and the type of pictures they have because it can really end up hurting some people in the end. In all, I don't think Facebook is a total waste but some people post or have pictures on there that to me are very inappropriate. It can be a good judge of character and people can choose whether they want to make themselves looked at in the positive or negative light.
I absolutely agree with you about Facebook causing unnecessary problems. I have a sister in 10th grade, and she actually made her Facebook inactive this year because of all the drama going on through it. For younger kids, I can see how taking Facebook so seriously could really be a problem especially in high school. I think this issue is something that we, as future teachers, will be faced with in our classroom even though we may not be using Facebook as a learning tool. Cyber-bullying is definitely a problem in middle and high schools; perhaps it will become even more of an issue in the future. Maybe we will have to be the ones to intervene and teach Facebook etiquette as a form of literacy in our classroom.
Facebook is also a type of literacy that is being updated and changed fairly often. I also think it would take only a short period of time to figure out how to work Facebook, maybe a week or two to figure out how to post links, pictures and other thing. I am slightly jealous of this guy who doesn't have Facebook because I feel like I could probably learn how to completely rebuild a car engine, or learn a foreign language if I did that instead of all the time I spent on Facebook.
I feel like this is the reaction that most people would have in this situation. We all assume that others are just as networked on the web as we are; however, that is not always the case. There are plenty of people out there who do their best to stay away from the trends. Facebook definitely causes WAY too many unnecessary problems, especially since it has stopped being a college domain and has been opened up to people of all ages. The more people you put on a network, the higher the chances are of people's opinions clashing. If it weren't for a group created by one of my classes to keep all our assignments in order and keep in contact with each other I would've deactivated mine a long time ago.
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