Talking Stick - May/June 2011 - 40

How do you feel about the argument that, as campuses move onto Facebook, Twitter, etc., the students may view this as an intrusion onto their turf? Whenever I hear someone take this position, I realize that I may need to educate him or her a little more about social media. I think it’s a little silly that the same people who house students on their campuses are concerned with “us” intruding on “their” turf. Seriously, we’re on each other’s turf. Social media are not owned by anyone, and while it’s important to use them in appropriate ways, there is no need to think that there’s going to be a backlash from students because we created a Facebook group for our hall association. Before jumping right in and engaging students through social media, it’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with student culture as it is expressed through these sites and services. If you log on to Facebook and your first activity is to message students from your hall telling them that their profile pictures or status updates are inappropriate, the odds are you are going to be seen as an intruder. Think of it like going to another country and first learning the cultural values and mores before diving in and engaging in conversations with local residents. Personally, I abide by a few rules in terms of using Facebook with students. First, my Facebook profile is sanitized for mass consumption – that is, you’re not going to learn much more about me being my Facebook friend than you would by taking my class. Certainly I’m careful about what I post on Facebook, but I’m also pretty open with my students (in the offline world). Second, I don’t ask students to be my friend; however, if they send me a friend request, I will accept. Third, I don’t make reference to the fact that I have a Facebook account in my classes. Finally, my students go into a special friend group that limits some of what they can see (mostly the content that others post about me).

used in ways that increase student engagement and improve grades, that there is a relationship between communicating via digital technologies and improved psychological well being, and that students who are more extroverted on Facebook are more extroverted in the real world. One of the problems with taking the stance that technology is getting in the way of face-to-face communication is that those who feel this way want little to do with social media. That’s a mistake. Civil discourse is a perfect example because just like student affairs professionals work to ensure that students engage in civil discourse on campus, we must ensure that they are also engaging in civil discourse online. That’s impossible to do if we don’t first learn about social media and how they are being used, recognizing that they can be used in advantageous ways; and then we must develop strategies to help our students use them in those beneficial ways. Online communication means that the concept of community is no longer as dependent on geography as it once was. How can a campus utilize social media to try to strengthen a campus community?

This answer is related to what I said before. It’s important for everyone who works with students to take part in social media communities that mirror the campus community. It’s clear that as technology and our relationship to it evolve, online spaces take on the character of offline spaces. Certainly, my research has shown this: that engaging in social media relates to engagement in the real world. Ways it can be done include setting up Facebook groups for clubs, associations, and groups. One example might be an RD setting up a Facebook group for her/his area and participating in conversations regularly. Facebook groups have a group chat feature that allows all members to chat simultaneously and has been used quite effectively in developing community in large lecture courses.

There is the image of students sharing debates and deep thoughts in their campus classrooms, coffee shops, and residence halls. How do you respond to the accusation that as more conversations happen online, students are losing the ability to communicate face-to-face or manage civil discourse? There is absolutely no data to suggest that social media use is related to fewer face-to-face communications. As a matter of fact, all of the research points to the opposite: that what happens in the online space mimics what happens in physical spaces. Research has shown that students use Facebook to build social capital, that Facebook use is related to real-world engagement in academic and cocurricular activities, that Twitter can be
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TALKING STICK

What are ways you’ve seen campuses successfully bring students together – in person – using social media? Some of the examples I gave before are good ones. But in reality, campuses are generally not engaging in
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Talking Stick - May/June 2011

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