Talking Stick - March/April 2009 - (Page 47) through how to talk (or joke) together about sensitive issues like gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, religion, and politics. Also, as a Newsweek article reported back in October 1997, electronic communication can provide a comfortable outlet for those who might normally hesitate to speak up: “The people who dominated dorm life in face-to-face encounters were not the same folks who ruled the e-mail debates. Electronic discourse, it seems, offered a voice to some students who might not otherwise be heard.” The main affordances of Facebook are a user profile consisting of shared personal information, a userconstructed and user-defined audience of friends, private messaging, and public commenting. Facebook groups facilitate various affiliations through group discussions, events, and shared media, and thousands of optional plug-in applications add various other social and networking tools. According to Ellison, Steinfield, and Lampe, Michigan State students “overwhelmingly used Facebook to keep in touch with old friends and to maintain or intensify relationships characterized by some form of offline connection such as dormitory proximity or a shared class.” They found that the use of Facebook facilitates “the maintenance and formation of social capital of all kinds,” not just the “high school social capital” associated with transition. Intensive Facebook usage increases both bonding and bridging social capital, that is, it strengthens relationships with both close friends and more distant weak ties. Bridging social capital may be especially important during emerging adulthood (ages 18-25). Intensity of Facebook usage is also associated with increased self-esteem and satisfaction with college life. In 2007-2008, partly inspired by the MSU work, Student Computing at Stanford partnered with residential education to study how students use Facebook in the context of residential life. In their study “The Real World: Facebook,” Ly and Schiller report that nearly all Stanford undergraduates live on campus (99 percent) and use Facebook (94 percent). A majority participates in living-learning programs, including academic theme or focus houses, language and culture houses, ethnic theme dorms, and first-year houses. These programs are led by faculty resident fellows, associated with academic directors, and supported by student staff, including resident assistants, resident computer consultants, peer academic coordinators, theme or focus associates, and resident tutors. Five different kinds of houses were studied, including an all-first-year-student house, a four-class academic focus house, and a four-class ethnic http://www.laundryalert.com
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