Fred Stutzman was the most recent speaker in the Davies Forum series. He actually gave his talk two weeks ago, but what with spring break and all this post was delayed.
Overall, I think Fred's talk was very informative. I can definitely tell that he is from a world of academics where all anybody is interested in is what literature you draw on to support your findings and what statistical data you have to prove your conclusions. Ok, so not all academics function that way, but the ones that I find rather boring do. Unfortunately, Fred appears to be in that school, and as such parts of his talk were rather bland.
Not one to offer criticism without simultaneously giving suggestions, here is what I would do differently, Fred. Leave most of the theory out, or work it into your research without explaining it in-depth. I want to hear about Facebook and all of the interesting things you are finding, not about some guy's theory from the 1970s. Also, make your findings more prominent in the presentation. Your theories about why people got so riled up about the Facebook feeds is fascinating, and I would love to hear more about things like that, especially since, as a student, I don't need you to prove to me that it did happpen. These suggestions may apply only to undergraduate audiences, which as a Facebook researcher I am hoping you will encounter more and more.
My favorite part of the talk was the Q&A. Fred seemed a lot more relaxed, and there was less "here's what supports my argument" and more "here's my argument!" (if that makes sense to anybody but me).
As for the content of the presentation, what I found most interesting is that people assume that their profiles are only semi-public, even in terms of viewing by their "friends", who by default get to look at the entire profile. This makes me wonder if people feel the same about their blogs; even though they can be viewed by a large audience, most people assume only a very small subset of the Internet is actually reading.
Basically, Fred, you rock(!) for studying Facebook, and I wish your presentation rocked(!) as much as you do.
2 comments:
Hi Sara, re: this statement: "This makes me wonder if people feel the same about their blogs; even though they can be viewed by a large audience, most people assume only a very small subset of the Internet is actually reading"
I have observed it to be true. My sense is that they may have an inkling that their postings and profiles are public. But knowing and actually experiencing are two different things.
When they actually get the attention from people linking to their blogs, commenting, and telling others about, I think most young people may not be fully prepared to handle the attention. I've seen a few blogs being shutdown, or they tell people to remove the links, or they may their blogs private.
This is where Digital Literacy comes in, where young people are taught about the consequences (not so much "dangers") of using social media, and enabling them to make informed choices of how much personal information they want to reveal to the world.
Thanks Ivan! A blogging prof and I disagreed about that exact idea a bit ago, and I am glad that my assumption was/is not totally off base.
I agree wholeheartedly with your comment re: digital literacy and privacy. In fact, I think it should be part of the standard curriculum at some point in a student's academic career.
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