Framing Questions: Week 10

Last spring I had the opportunity to live blog from the FutureWeb Conference, in which danah boyd led several sessions. She has a fascinating take on the impact of social networking, especially with younger generations. Many of the thoughts she shared last spring were reminiscent of her two studies that we are reading in this class.

1. boyd says the role between public and private is becoming increasingly blurred, especially within the realm of education. How is the role of the educator evolving to embrace the changes in social technologies that boyd discusses?

2. Many people argue for the necessity of “openness” online. How does this apply to social networking sites? The use of these sites implies the projection of personal data, often will relatively little control over the recipients of this information. To what degree are the teenagers in boyd’s studies concerned about the transparency of their networked presence?

3. On a similar note, with the new privacy concerns arising over the series of policy changes implemented by Facebook, as discussed in boyd’s “Facebook privacy settings: who cares?” introduction, how are younger users changing their privacy settings/online behavior in response? boyd cites recent Pew studies that prove the 18 to 29 year-old bracket immediately updated their privacy settings- but are these youth educated enough to understand the significance of such actions, or are they blindly following the crowd of users?

Tags: facebook, framing, privacy concerns, social networking sites, transparency