RJ

1. What do you think are the two most influential factors that have contributed to Facebook's success today? Reflect on the impact (both positive and negative) that Facebook or any other social networking tool has on your daily life in relation to these two factors. For each factor, provide at least one appropriate example to support your answer. (10 marks)

I was first introduced to Facebook when I was in Secondary 3 by one of my friend who just came back from Boston. At that time, Friendster was the still the “In” thing before Facebook and Twitter actually penetrated Singapore and topped the ranking of the different social networking sites. I was still using both Friendster and Facebook till I was in Secondary 4 when I become the Facebook convert just like many of my friends. Why did I want to try Facebook since it has similar functions as Friendster? The answer was it was something new.

Many applications and games since the first time I used Facebook which was two years back. I still remember the very “in” thing to do on Facebook would be to “poke” and “throw sheep” at your friends. We or rather I was so into it was because it was something new! It was something that Friendster doesn’t offer. Facebook have got this application called the tagging application whereby you can actually tag your friends in photos and different posts. Personally, tagging actually informs me whether the pictures which I’ve taken are posted up. It can also update my friends about where I’ve been to or what I’ve done as Facebook will automatically update news on your friends’ news feed page. Not only that, you can create Facebook groups and pages which Friendster can’t! There’re also plenty of games with different ranges being offered on Facebook. Friendster could not offer what Facebook was offering and it only grasp the entire “I got to offer something new” idea when many became Facebook converters.

Compared to Friendster, Facebook has constantly been upgrading itself over the years. Personally I feel most of the changes that Facebook has adopted has been for the better. I can’t really think of any that is for the worst. In the short span of two years, Facebook managed to change so much to improve their site.

I think Facebook is rather user friendly right now compared to the previous few layouts that they have. It’s so user friendly to the extent that even my mom who doesn’t serve the net, logs into Facebook every day! My mom went to Korea and Japan in Oct and she communicated my siblings and me almost daily via Facebook instead of phone or emailing. Why? Simply because it is free to use Facebook and sometimes, it’s almost instant! There’s this chat function which functions like the MSN messenger. So if both of us are online, we can chat with each other despite us being in different countries without have to download MSN messenger and creating a hotmail account. If either one of us are not online, we can either message each other via Facebook or if it’s something less private, we can write on each other’s Facebook wall. It is like a onetime thing. You just have to register for an account, you can have almost everything. Thus I think this is another contributing factor to the success of Facebook. Also, many people today are using the Internet, thus places have wireless access. It makes it even easier for people to have access to Facebook. With the introduction of smart phones like blackberry, iPhone etc., it is even easier for people to have access to Facebook! With just one scroll or touch, they’re reading their news feed page.

The negative impact for Facebook would be people will be addicted to it and become very reliant on Facebook to the extent that they would actually neglect face to face interactions. This happened quite a few times when both my sister and I are so busy with doing our own things and we got updated on each other lives via Facebook when we’re both living under one roof. My sister would post on her wall about her day and I would then go and comment on it and vice versa happens. As for my brother (he’s only 9 this year and he has a Facebook account!!!!), he’s on Facebook playing games most of the time instead of doing his homework. My mom will have to constantly nag at him to do his homework. So I guess this is one negative impact that Facebook has created.

2. The movie focuses a lot on ethical issues and responsible use of social networking tools. Briefly describe any one example of unethical/ irresponsible use of Facebook in the movie and discuss your views on it. Provide one example of how you can engage an online community ethically on any one social networking tool of your choice. (10 marks)

The one example of unethical/ irresponsible use of Facebook in the movie was when Mark Zuckerberg posted his picture of his assignment on Facebook and asking people to comment and discuss about it so that from there, he can piece out a report and submit it. This is deemed as cheating and it is unethical. To me, Facebook’s primary purpose is to connect people together and to find out what’s happening in their lives. This is very misleading as it plants ideas into the minds of the users and indirectly telling them it’s is alright for them to do cheat online. This does not help to promote Facebook as an ethical social networking tool just because people are misusing it for their own selfish intent.

One way to engage the online community ethically can be to start a movement to educate internet users on the ethical issues. I personally feel that one way to educate them is not to tell them what is right and what is wrong. If not, the users will be quick to turn off to this whole movement and turn their attention to other things that are more attractive online.

A platform can be created to allow them to share their personal experiences and post their thoughts and comments about unethical issues. We’re no longer living in a one way communication world. We’re living in a two way communication world whereby information is being transmitted to the receiver, receiver can quickly reply to the message. It is ongoing and never ceasing. Thus, instead of forcing information down their throats, we should have an interactive learning. The users not just learn from the committee that sets up this whole movement, but also from the other users as well. Also, gray areas regarding ethics online can be covered as well.

I also feel that it is important to teach them about some consequences they have to face if they are to be unethical online. One of the many examples would be defaming someone through blogs, twitter, Facebook and other social networking platforms. Like what Erica in the movie said, whatever is posted up on the Internet is being “written in ink”. It is permanent. Users have to be educated on the consequences so that they will always think twice before they act. Also, users should be aware that legal actions can be taken towards them online as well as offline.

We can use a combination of the different social networking sites. I would suggest using Twitter, Facebook and blogs to promote and educate. Setting up of blogs would be apt as it does not have a limit to the number of words or characters you can post up to. So on the blog itself, we can afford to be more detailed about information and a comment section can be set up for people to exchange views and share their experiences.

According to http://www.greyreview.com/2010/04/20/105779710-million-users-and-new-estimates-of-twitter-users-in-asia/, there’re about 930,861 twitter users as of April 2010. I believe that the number has risen since then. Twitter is a mircoblogging service which users can post up to 140 characters. We can use Twitter to inform the followers on what are the updates on the blog that is being set up.

Even though Twitter users are increasing, but more people still would prefer using Facebook. We can post updates on Facebook pages as well and ask them to comment about the issue on the page.

(sorry for the very late post)

Jasmin