Fellow educator and friend, MrT**, posted the following bulletin on MySpace:“I have known about Virb and Facebook for a long time now but never wandered in to see what they were all about… I have had a Virb account for awhile but it’s blank… just set up a Facebook account this week and love it… so much more fun and smooth than MS.”
Then he sent me the following note: “Seriously man, I need a tech boot camp to get me caught up… come visit me and get me straightened out and on the road to tech recovery”
MS vs. Facebook: i keep my myspace profile because I have the most “friends” there but facebook feels more useful to me. It’s a generational thing, i’m sure. My middle school kids haven’t “discovered” Facebook… yet. They use Myspace like i use my blogs, flickr, twitter. I’m okay with using separate services to do my online life, they put it all in one basket. The other thing I find interesting about myspace with my middle school students is how much they feel like they “own” their use of myspace, like they alone discovered it and that for me to have a profile is weird, almost an invasion of their space.
Two girls in my yearbook class dared each other to stay off Myspace for 30 days, but one backed out of the bet in less than three days. Lots of girls are on myspace as soon as they get home from school (if they have a computer with internet), while boys go to youtube to watch skater/paintball/pr0n videos…. hmmm, active community vs. passive watching….
Virb? I know I’d heard about it months ago, but there hasn’t been any groundswell and I haven’t done anything with my profile… ack.
More importantly Social Networking vs. Real Life: None of my four siblings are on any social network (or IM, for that matter). Only one or two out of dozens in my work life, church friends or friends I’ve known for years are on MySpace, etc. This leads me to believe that this whole things is mostly for younger social circle and those in the technology field. As a tech teacher I fall into both categories. Few others seem to care at all about any of this and see little use at all. JBB
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Music/podcast/video: dl.tv 200 Oct 18, 2007: Yes, Episode 200! from the album “dl.tv iPod video” by DL.TV
*MrT: Not the bejeweled tough-guy from the 70s but the mild-mannered OMAET grad studying to enter law school (Myspace profile)
. . . I would concur re: the mindset of middle schoolers and Myspace – I remember the “shock” some of my students had when they found out I had a Myspace page (it turned to respect at some point, though I don’t know how or way). Your response made me wonder if they feel the same level of ownership about their actual physical rooms in their homes. I remember that my room was sacred ground as far as I was concerned – anyone, ANYONE, needed to knock before entering and then they still needed my gracious approval to actually enter . . . do these kids who feel that Myspace is truly “theirs” feel as overtly protective of their physical rooms as we did?
Myspace seems to be driven by middle schoolers, while FB is a more college age + environment. My, son Andrew, has had a Myspace presence for about two+ years now and when I began to put my FB space together wanted to do likewise – the first thought was (and actually came out of my mouth) it is a more mature space, you have to present yourself better . . . is that true? I don’t know, there is still a tremendously youthful , juvenile at times, approach to FB – but at the same time it feels more sophisticated.
As for Virb, when you first send me looking there I thought it might give MS a run for it’s money . . . but it really hasn’t developed into much – at least to the degree where it gets the word of mouth that FB does.
It would be interesting to find out how many FB members started out on MS . . . and then how many that have fled MS because of the “ageing down” that seems to have taken place there have chosen FB or Virb . . . has there been a migration and to which environment and WHY?
Another thought . . . what was the original population of Myspace?
Were the original denizens of MS high school students on the verge of college whose younger siblings, in a rush to keep up, began to invade the Myspace environment and as their older brothers and sisters moved on (to FB?) became the majority demographic of MS?
Did the originals from MS move on to FB because it was more college friendly and will Virb evolve as the place that those who are post undgrad age migrate? Will Virb give those wanting to cyber-mature a place to move to when they graduate?