Facebook is Taking Over My Life!

I've now had a Facebook profile for about 10 days or so. If you ever wonder if your students will find your Facebook profile, should you decide to put one up, the answer is a resounding yes. Every law professor I've found on Facebook so far has at least a handful of student "friends" associated with their profile. I've picked up quite a few in the last week, owing mostly, I think, to spending nearly a week with a number of them in New Orleans.

I had two goals in setting up the Facebook profile, and I think both have been satisfied already: the first was to provide another way for students to reach me (I like being accessible to them, and I've read that they don't use e-mail as much as they do Facebook for quick communications); the second was to just see what the allure was to providing so much personal information about oneself in such a public forum.

It seems that you have to be that odd combination of computer dork and social butterfly to appreciate Facebook if you're not a Millennial. If you're a Millennial, the skills required to master Facebook don't put you in the "dork" category -- it's just what people know how to do. My husband is a bona fide computer dork -- he makes his living programming electric engines for hybrid dump trucks. But he's not a social butterly. So Facebook doesn't appeal to him at all.

I'm a different story. I love to learn people's stories, and I love sharing mine. Facebook provides a way to be known by someone really quickly. And it provides a way to keep up with everyone in your network really easily. You can literally get up-to-the-minute information on everyone. If one of your friends is reading a new book, enjoying a good meal, making new friends, joining a new Facebook group, contributing money to a cause -- you name it -- you can get all that information in a News Feed on your page. Of course, they get the same information about you. So as you get more information about your friends, Facebook taunts you to include more information about yourself. My friends have a list of books they're reading on their page? Hey, I want a list of books I'm reading on my page, too!

If you thought the Internet could suck time out of your day, you should try Facebook. The amount of information that you can access about others and provide about yourself is limitless. It's addictive.

For the most part, I have to say that I'm impressed that my students' Facebook profiles contain appropriate information. If they were drunk in any of the posted pictures, it's not apparent. Granted, my sample size is exceedingly small and composed primarily of students who just spent their spring break doing volunteer work in Louisiana. So I'll concede that it may not be representative of Millennials on Facebook in general.

This coming fall, I'm planning on providing my Facebook profile to students as a way of communicating with me outside of class. Periodically, I'll check in with how I think that's going and whether it seems to be worthwhile. I'm also thinking about what kind of analogies to Facebook my be helpful to students as they learn to do legal research. I used to use an analogy between legal research and the phonebook. I start with, "How would you find contact information for someone if all you know is her name?" The last time I asked that question, "Facebook" was the answer.

In the meantime, I have to go add more widgets to my Facebook page.