Hanging Out: Social Learning via Facebook.

I've had a Facebook account since I was 18. That's pretty old considering how young the kids on Facebook are nowadays...

I was reading the section on "Hanging Out" in the Living and Learning with New Media report by the MacArthur Foundation and found their report pretty amazing. They capture the youth's perspective on how they use new media. As teachers and adults, we forget how much students just learn by "hanging out", whether online or in person. It may not support the kind of learning we hope to see in our classrooms on a day to day basis, but think about all the social norms and conventions you learned from interacting with your peers as an adolescent. Those are probably life skills that you still use today. These norms and conventions are changing for our kids, due to their access to new media. How they define "friends" and the implications of their actions take on a whole new meaning when you consider the active role of social networking sites like Facebook in their daily lives.

For example: A close friend of mine and I went through a big fight about a year ago. During this incident, she proceeded to "defriend" me on Facebook. She had her reasons, but I was very offended. It felt like she was totally cutting herself off from my life. It didn't matter that we weren't on speaking terms, but as long as we were "friends" on Facebook, I could see what was going on in her life and she could see into mine, without the other knowing. When she defriended me, it suddenly denied me access to her current life, and sent an implied message that she was no longer interested in mine. I haven't refriended her since, and she hasn't requested to be mine. We have not exchanged words in a long time.

This is a different kind of stress than what you might feel when fighting with a friend in person. The most you can do to shut them off from your life is to ignore them. But chances are, you will still run into them at school, at a party, or a social gathering. If you're in the same social circle, its very difficult to cut them off from your life entirely. But defriending on Facebook allows you to do so- in cyberspace, and it still hurts.

Facebook has changed how we navigate and maintain relationships with other people. Kids use it to learn and experiment with the social rules that govern our society. Once they figure that out, Facebook becomes a tool to stay connected. And who isn't connected nowadays?

What are your thoughts on Facebook? Are you on it?