{"id":2531,"date":"2008-10-23T20:00:15","date_gmt":"2008-10-24T00:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/?p=2531"},"modified":"2008-10-23T20:00:15","modified_gmt":"2008-10-24T00:00:15","slug":"social-networks-and-college-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/2008\/10\/23\/social-networks-and-college-students.html","title":{"rendered":"Social Networks and College Students"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/connect.educause.edu\/Library\/ECAR\/TheECARStudyofUndergradua\/47485?time=1224804561\">2008 ECAR (EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research) survey<\/a><\/strong> has been released, and they have added a section on social networking (<a href=\"http:\/\/net.educause.edu\/ir\/library\/pdf\/ers0808\/rs\/ers08086.pdf\">pdf version of chapter here<\/a>).\u00a0 Among the findings:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Slightly over 85% of those surveyed use social networks, with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/\">Facebook<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.myspace.com\/\">MySpace<\/a> topping the list.<\/li>\n<li>Younger students (under 30) tended to use Facebook, while older ones tend towards MySpace.<\/li>\n<li>About 50% use social networking for discussing classwork with other students; only about 5% use it for discussing classwork with instructors.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The only one of these three that surprised me was the tendancy towards Facebook\/MySpace by age.\u00a0 I have thought of MySpace as appealing to younger users than Facebook.<\/p>\n<p>Social networks are definitely here to stay.\u00a0 In five years we may not be discussing Facebook or MySpace (because they might have been superceded by a yet un-created network), but people will be more interconnected, not less.<\/p>\n<p>The third point is one that should make us take notice.\u00a0 Half of the surveyed students have used social networks to discuss classwork; the main reason they haven&#8217;t discussed it with instructors (and by extension, the library folk) is that we view it as some sort of cyber malt shop, a place only for their peers.<\/p>\n<p>If we make ourselves available on social networks, we aren&#8217;t going to find ourselves becoming an overnight sensation.\u00a0 We will, however, give people one more way to view us as being there to assist them.<\/p>\n<p>Whether we create OPAC search tools to embed (or even highlight the good ones that exist, like <a href=\"http:\/\/worldcat.org\/blogs\/archives\/2008\/10\/updated-facebook-apps.htm\">WorldCat<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/worldcat.org\/blogs\/archives\/2008\/06\/citeme-on-facebook.htm\">CiteMe<\/a> in Facebook &#8211; also <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/apps\/index.php?q=WorldCat\">here<\/a>), create an institutional identity, or just make ourselves more visible as individuals, there is much we can do to assist students and promote our services.<\/p>\n<p>We can jump on board the trolley, or be left behind.\u00a0 The choice is ours, both individually and collectively.\u00a0 I am on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/profile.php?id=587697192&amp;ref=profile\">Facebook<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/rickcmason\">LinkedIn<\/a>, btw&#8230; and you should be too.<\/p>\n<p>found via Web4Lib &#8212; thanks Gerry McKiernan!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 2008 ECAR (EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research) survey has been released, and they have added a section on social networking (pdf version of chapter here).\u00a0 Among the findings: Slightly over 85% of those surveyed use social networks, with Facebook &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/2008\/10\/23\/social-networks-and-college-students.html\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2928,2943,2944,2949,2952],"tags":[4054,4053,4187,3948,4052,4056,4055,3693,3496,4186,4185],"class_list":["post-2531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-libraries","category-library-20","category-oclc","category-online-services","tag-ecar","tag-educause","tag-educause-center-for-applied-research","tag-facebook","tag-gerry-mckiernan","tag-linkedin","tag-myspace","tag-social-networking","tag-social-networks","tag-un-created-network","tag-use-social-networking"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pSU5g-EP","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2531\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.libology.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}