In this weeks workshop Dr Emma Short, a Psychology lecturer, came in to discuss with us our opinions on Facebook and other social media sites. She is working on gathering information from students on their opinions and usage on these websites. For me it was a really interesting workshop, not only was it one we could all become really interacted in, it was also useful to see just how much we use Facebook and whether or not we use it in the right way. It was also useful in pointing out some serious problems to these sites that we go blissfully unaware of.
Looking into some background of Dr Emma Short she has recently done alot of research in Cyber stalking and published, 'Cyber stalking in the UK: Analysis and Recommendations International Journal of Distributed Systems and Technologies (IJDST) Volume 3, Issue 4.' Clearly there is a link between the idea of Cyber stalking and Facebook, as alot of those who are victims of Cyber stalking it can stem from sites like Facebook and Twitter.
But in her most recent research she is looking into our behaviour, as students, on Facebook. The discussion came onto the topic of Bullying and inappropriate comments that get posted. Do we actually do anything to stop them? Do we encourage them? Or, do we read them, ignore, and carry on? At this point it was apparent the room was very quiet. I cant speak for everybody, but certainly for myself I was ashamed to realise that I probably do read horrible, nasty and hurtful comments and on almost all occasions I read them and ignore it. Probably because it isn't aimed at me...but it has been aimed at somebody, somebody will have been hurt by the comments and at this point I probably should intervene. I know I can say that never have I ever wrote anything offensive to anybody else, but is it just as bad to sit there and do nothing?
We went on to discuss Facebooks rules and regulations, do we ignore those to? Unfortunately, yes. This is familiar territory for me as I have previously wrote a blog post on this topic, http://torirutherford.blogspot.co.uk/- "Stop Ignoring The Important Stuff." Look at this for more information and my opinion on the matter. But it was obvious that 100% of my class all use Twitter or Facebook, or both and ALL of us accepted the terms without reading. Does this not raise issues and tell us alot about our generation? This lead us on to think about rules and policies on a bigger scale. For example, when at the University of Bedfordshire we can use their wireless access on our phone, I do this regularly. But every time I do so, I have to type in my password and accept their rules and regulations, http://ps-mx-200-01.beds.ac.uk/aaa/student-index.html?wbaredirect=http://www.beds.ac.uk/wireless This website shows the full regulations that I agree with every time I log in to use wifi.
The whole workshop was really quite eye opening to alot of things, and it was interesting to find out just how other people my age use the web and social media websites. It's always important to remember what we agree to, and important to remember, in a society where the media is changing and evolving everyday, just how to use the internet and social media properly.
