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Lookjed List Archive : Phorum 5
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What's wrong with Facebook!?!
Posted by: Yitzchak Jaffe (IP Logged)
Date: November 15, 2006 11:00PM
<HTML>This is one of those subjects that I'm having trouble being silent about.
Last year when I was working on a college campus my students insisted on
creating a facebook profile for me. I had no idea what it was at the time,
but it seemed pretty harmless. The thing that confuses me about this whole
discussion is that I have never really changed my original assessment. All
of a sudden I'm hearing that people have a problem with it, but to me the
problem feels artificially concocted to be just another thing for us to be
upset about to, frankly, distract us from far more serious and urgent
problems. Our children are using drugs, going off the derech, and doing
pre-marital who-knows-what, and people are going on crusades to find the
girl who posted herself on facebook with her sleeve above the elbow!
(Disclaimer: All my comments are about facebook. I know absolutely nothing
about the other one.)
Two remarks:
People really need to pick and choose their battles. Fighting against
facebook at this stage of the game would be like trying to get our kids
not to use cellphones or I-Pods. It's one giant losing battle, and it's
just not worth it. Plus: By putting up such a strong opposition we risk
making it appear even more fascinating. If we really want to get every
student in the country to join facebook, I recommend putting it in cherem.
The best way of dealing with these kinds of situations is to make the best
of it. When we realized the world was going to be taken over by the
internet we loaded it up with shiurim, daf yomi sites, and every Jewish
resource you could imagine! I think we should take a totally different
approach to the "problem" at hand. We, as educators and parents, should
ourselves join these groups. I guarantee you our students will become our
"friends" instantly, like they did at the campus I was at last year. It
brought us closer together. Students are fascinated by teachers who do
these sorts of things. With almost no effort they were able to relate to
me in a way they weren't able to before. And think about it this way:
Facebook works that you cannot see someone's profile unless you are one of
their "friends." It's total freedom so long as the teachers remain
outsiders. Become their friends, and you'll never find the horribly
inappropriate picture. Why? Because you're now monitoring from the inside.
Instead of removing their photo because they're afraid of some high school
administration witch-hunt crack down, they'll remove the picture because
they're a drip embarrassed. To me it seems like a scenario with no losses.
Yitzchak Jaffe
Baltimore, MD 21209</HTML>
Last year when I was working on a college campus my students insisted on
creating a facebook profile for me. I had no idea what it was at the time,
but it seemed pretty harmless. The thing that confuses me about this whole
discussion is that I have never really changed my original assessment. All
of a sudden I'm hearing that people have a problem with it, but to me the
problem feels artificially concocted to be just another thing for us to be
upset about to, frankly, distract us from far more serious and urgent
problems. Our children are using drugs, going off the derech, and doing
pre-marital who-knows-what, and people are going on crusades to find the
girl who posted herself on facebook with her sleeve above the elbow!
(Disclaimer: All my comments are about facebook. I know absolutely nothing
about the other one.)
Two remarks:
People really need to pick and choose their battles. Fighting against
facebook at this stage of the game would be like trying to get our kids
not to use cellphones or I-Pods. It's one giant losing battle, and it's
just not worth it. Plus: By putting up such a strong opposition we risk
making it appear even more fascinating. If we really want to get every
student in the country to join facebook, I recommend putting it in cherem.
The best way of dealing with these kinds of situations is to make the best
of it. When we realized the world was going to be taken over by the
internet we loaded it up with shiurim, daf yomi sites, and every Jewish
resource you could imagine! I think we should take a totally different
approach to the "problem" at hand. We, as educators and parents, should
ourselves join these groups. I guarantee you our students will become our
"friends" instantly, like they did at the campus I was at last year. It
brought us closer together. Students are fascinated by teachers who do
these sorts of things. With almost no effort they were able to relate to
me in a way they weren't able to before. And think about it this way:
Facebook works that you cannot see someone's profile unless you are one of
their "friends." It's total freedom so long as the teachers remain
outsiders. Become their friends, and you'll never find the horribly
inappropriate picture. Why? Because you're now monitoring from the inside.
Instead of removing their photo because they're afraid of some high school
administration witch-hunt crack down, they'll remove the picture because
they're a drip embarrassed. To me it seems like a scenario with no losses.
Yitzchak Jaffe
Baltimore, MD 21209</HTML>
