Serious Stuff Here

Yes, joining Facebook really is part of an assignment for my Medical Library Association Social Networking Tools class. I had some peculiar responses to the Facebook invitations I sent, and they seem to be stratified by age group. One of my younger co-workers had invited me to join Facebook several months ago, so I was already signed up. My daughter responded to my invitation immediately, setting up her own profile and populating it with photos from her recent honeymoon in Austrailia and Bali. An older co-worker responded by asking me to send the invite to her personal e-mail. Ouch. A third older friend didn't respond electronically, but later asked me in a phone conversation if he'd have to put in personal information for all to see.

These are only 3 data points, but they seem to be pointing to an age-related phenomenon. Another experience I had with wikis: I tried to get the women in my family to participate in a creative writing wiki because, of course, we're all very clever and have interesting things to say. I was warned (by someone from the generation even older than mine) that this would be dangerous because of the identity theft problem. I know that sometimes kids reveal too much information and are pounced on by predators, but I think the new social networking paradigm asks people to examine their worldview from an Einsteinian perspective: Is the world essentially a friendly place or is it not. The answer to that may determine whether you're a social networker or whether you are not.