Electing a President on Facebook

The Chronicle of Higher Ed reports on the effect of social networking on the presidential election.

I've seen a lot of activity these last few days on Facebook about the election. In particular, one application invites users to donate their status (a status message is basically a once-sentence update about what/how you're doing) on election day so that it has a message about the election. You can just between supporting McCain or Obama, supporting a different candidate or proposition, or just encouraging others to get out the vote.

This is one of many places where using social networking as a way to connect with both your personal and professional contacts (i.e., students and other professors) is tricky. If I were using Facebook for purely personal reasons and I didn't have student of voting age, I would likely donate my status message to support the presidential candidate of my choice. As it is, I hold back and just encourage others to vote for the candidate of their choice. In Texas, where I used to teach, that would simply be self-presevation. Here in New York, I guess I'm still holding back out of some sense of professorial etiquette. It's one of the many ways that Facebook is complicated for everyone.