Two important issues every college student faces are their future and their social life; the answer to every five year old’s inquiry of, “what am I going to be when I grow up?” and every college student’s need for a social life. Images from popular culture such as Animal House have led to the misconception that college is a marathon party with only sleep coming between random hookups, hangovers, and the occasional paper or test. Generation Y’s college students have taken to online websites such as Facebook to reach out to people they may never meet in person to make new friends. However, serious challenges may be faced by a college student’s use of Facebook.
Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes founded Facebook while attending Harvard. The website was successful within the Harvard community and quickly spread to other Ivy League institutions. Zuckerberg and Moskovitz left college to manage Facebook as a full time job. As of November 2004 Facebook has reached over one million users. During 2005 Facebook expanded to 835 colleges throughout the country extending its reach to community colleges and educational institutions in other countries. You can now find facebook at all colleges in the nation reaching over 2,200. While many students have adopted Facebook into their day-to-day routines, educational institutions have begun to react to the site’s growing popularity.
In October of 2005 a student at Fisher College in Boston, Massachusetts was expelled for negative comments posted about a University Police Officer. Penn State University Police utilized Facebook to find students who disrupted a game against Ohio State. Students at Northern Kentucky University were penalized for posting photos of a drinking party on their Facebook page. Kansas State University made use of Facebook to look into possible breaches in the campus’s honor code when students made use of Facebook to trade information without the Professor’s knowledge. The University of New Mexico blocked access to Facebook from on campus facilities due to violations of the school’s acceptable use policy. Most concerning to the school was the usage of a University of New Mexico email address to use Facebook for non-school purposes. According to a report in Syracuse University’s Daily Orange, SUNY Environmental Science and Forestry's Undergraduate Student Association sent out an email warning the student body of campus policy violations on Facebook. Chip Morris, Director of Student Conduct & Community Standards at SUNY Potsdam, has already handled several cases involving Facebook here.
Article comments
1 - Aaman
What's the difference between facebook and yahoo, or AIM?
Further, are college students so stupid as to not realize that everything is public in this new,hyper-real world? Privacy is so 20th-century:)
2 - -E
Facebook isn't an instant messaging service. It is much more like a bbs where the conversation can be somewhat real time, but through "private messages." You create a profile with as much or as little info about yourself as you like (some simply put their city of residence, others put their address and phone number). It is like Friendster or Myspace, only a bit more exclusive in that it is for students or alumni and not just anyone.
3 - anonymous
This is a very informative artical. I think it should be shown to everyone of FB. I have countless friends with wasted pictures at parties and whatnot...
4 - Joe
Ever heard of splitting things into paragraphs? What is this, 2nd grade? My god.
5 - Jordan Richardson
They didn't have paragraphs in 2005, Joe.
6 - snehal
share more about misuse of facebook