facebook made easy

The following is from a presentation I made to a class of college students. Keep in mind that, although the audience was specified, much of the information applies to most facebook users, and can be translated into a multitude of situations.

You probably have a facebook account. That’s great, because, as a college student, facebook isn’t only a great way to stay in touch but it is also vital in pursuing your career after school. If you don’t have a facebook account, I know it can seem overwhelming or even ludicrous, but having a facebook account can be very beneficial.

Facebook can be fun and surprisingly useful as a self-promotion and networking tool; but it also can create serious safety and privacy issues and well as wreak havoc on a person’s social and professional life. According to the website, the average facebook user has 130 confirmed friends, but I believe that the demographic of college students has more than that (“Press Room”). I tested the theory and tallied up the average number of friends 30 of my college friends have. Granted, these numbers weren’t calculated with any level of sophistication, but it may give you an idea of who you might be sitting next to. That number is more like 504 friends, with the lowest number being 110 and the most being 1,106 friends. That’s a lot of people to be sharing personal information with.

Safety Issues:

Perhaps the most necessary issue to consider is safety. It can be awfully tempting to have personal conversations on somebody’s wall or to update your status with every passing interest. But if you don’t edit what you say you may be putting yourself or one of your friends in danger.

There are many stories about people posting that they’re going out of town only to come home to find their home has been broken into. In Nashua, New Hampshire it went so far that a gang decided it was an efficient way to target homes. They hit 50 homes in one month (Mello). It’s only natural to be excited to be going home for Christmas or going to Vegas to live out the Katy Perry song. But when you announce this to 1,000 of your “friends” anyone that is hard up for some cash may decide to break into your apartment or dorm, since you left it clearly marked that there will be nobody at home.

When you’re leaving town isn’t the only time you should worry about people knowing where you are. The improper use of status updates could allow some people to pay more attention to you than you may think possible. If you mention that you’re off to class every Monday and Wednesday at 2:00, and that the walk to Sims Hall is treacherous in the snow, people can very easily find you. You never know who is keeping track of your activities, so it’s best to keep your location to yourself.
The facebook app, facebook Places, is showing signs of gaining many users; people can share their locations instantly. If you have hundreds of people who can see where you are, it may be best to make sure your privacy settings are highly tuned. And never post when you are home, and where “home” is.

Privacy Issues:

Phishing and scamming

You really have to be careful which apps you apply to your profile, because your personal safety isn’t the only thing at stake; you are also risking your privacy. When you agree to use an application you usually have to agree to let the application have full reign on your profile information. Also, there are many imposter applications that will link your account to outside websites where it can convince you and your friends to enter their personal information and lure more people into the scam.

Sometimes these sites are only mildly malicious and easily denied access to further access to your account. Other times these outside users will go so far as to luring your friends to “loan you money” when you are trapped in some faraway land. Be wary of your friends that are spending a semester abroad who suddenly need you to wire them some cash. You should probably give them a call and hear it first hand. Facebook offers some tips on protecting yourself via their “security page” (“Help Center”).

Tagging photos

If your friends are little closer to home, you still have to worry about your privacy. Let’s pretend that you have two parties to choose between this weekend; one is going to be a blow-the-roof-off-throw-down, the other a quiet birthday party at Applebee’s. You’ve had a rough week with 3 midterms and a presentation, and you just want to cut loose. So you tell the birthday girl that you would love to come, but you absolutely have to study. Then the next day you see you’re tagged in 27 photos in which you’re dancing on a pool table. And even before your friend could post those little pieces of history, another friend had tagged you through facebook Places as “Checked In” on Euclid Ave. So how can you avoid these little tattle-tales?
Well, you could be honest with friend number 1 and tell her you already made plans. Or you could make sure you have your privacy settings highly tuned. It’s probably a good idea to go under you’re privacy setting, and under the subheading “things people share about me”, mark “tagged photos“ as “only me” (“General Safety”). If there’s something you really want everyone to see, you can always download it and share it yourself. Or once you’ve reviewed the pictures you are tagged in you can simply remove the tag from the pictures you don’t approved of.

Promoting Yourself

Networking

But facebook isn’t all monsters and demons. As of July 2010 there were 500 million active users. 100 million of the users were new since February 2010 (“Press Room”). This means that you can connect with friends back home, new friends here in Syracuse, people that really like the same musician as you, and that cute girl in your CRS class.

One of the best ways to keep your network checking in on what you’re doing is the proper use of the “like” button. The school paper from Ole Miss offers some help. There’s a reason there isn’t a “dislike” button on the website. If a friend says something about a failed test or hard class, you may empathize, but you don’t “like” that they are struggling. Take the time to show you care and write out a comment; this will keep you from appearing that you are mocking them and they will be more likely to reciprocate (Mosby). Conversely, if you are always complaining about things on your page, people are more likely to hit that ignore button. Your goal for successful networking should be to get as many “likes” as you can. Post your successes and things that you care about and truly “like” yourself (Maguire).
Potential employers

And because there are so many people using facebook, chances are your future boss is using the website also. They want to promote their company as much as they want to check in on you, their new employee, so it would be beneficial to both of you if you can be friends. You should have a handle on concealing that pool-table dance and you should share that charity work you did last month. You shouldn’t have your privacy settings set so high that no one can tell anything about you. But you only want to share what you truly want to share. Write a meaningful bio and pick a tasteful quote. Share some pictures of you on world trips and dressed to a T. These little details will show your potential employer that you know how to put your best foot forward and that you don’t need to hide who you are.

Facebook and other social networking sites are the future of how the world will communicate. We know this from movies like “the social network” and the thousands of dollars people make from their YouTube channels. Our children won’t know a world without these platforms for communication, and we want to set a good precedent. If we start with these basics and innovate new ways to become successful with the aid of these sites, we can change the way society operates, eliminate inefficiencies, and still maintain our privacy and safety.


Works Cited

“General Safety”. facebook.com. Web. Retrieved October 2, 2010.

“Help Center.” facebook.com. Web. Retrieved October 2, 2010.

Maguire, Rob. “13 Ways to Promote Your Facebook Page.” Robmaguire.com. December 22, 2008. Web. Retrieved December 2, 2010.

Mellow, John P. Jr. “Gang Uses Facebook to Rob Houses.” PCWorld. pcworld.com. September 10, 2010. Web. Retrieved October 3, 2010.

Mosby, Jon. “How to Use the ‘Like’ Button on Facebook.” The Daily Mississipian. TheDMonline.com. August 31, 2010. Web. Retrieved October 1, 2010.

“Press Room.” facebook.com. Web. Retrieved October 2, 2010.

Live Fast, Eat Slow.

There’s a man named Matt Malmgren who lives in Vermont and collects fast food burgers. I mean, he keeps them on the shelf in his living room like your grandmother collects salt-and-pepper shakers. How long has he been doing this? Since 1991 (Spurlock 116-117). And they’re in pristine condition, just sitting in their wrappers. That’s not right.

The Slow Food movement is a grassroots organization that focuses on educating the masses, and encouraging people to think about what they are putting in their bodies. Slow Food believes food should be “Good, Clean and Fair” (Schneider 390-391). This may sound vague, but it embodies a vision where people can eat delicious food that is healthy for the body and the earth. It is grown by people who are justly compensated and treated well and the foods are available to everyone. There are steps we can all take to help make our food good, clean and fair.

But what is Good Food?

McDonald’s tastes good. But it’s manufactured to taste good. Not grown, manufactured by a team of scientists in New Jersey (Spurlock).

Raspberries are good. Have you ever been walking around outside, camping, hiking, at the park and came across a raspberry bush? That’s special. The surprise feels good. Succeeding in picking them without getting pricked by their thorns feels good. The seeds stuck in your teeth, not so good, but it’s a reminder of just how good they taste. And if you don’t get to those tasty little morsels by the middle of July, they’re all gone. That’s what real food does. They call it Slow Food, but you’ve got to catch it.

What is clean food?

You use ammonia to clean. So do meat processors. They wash their chicken and beef, so that you don’t get sick (Food, Inc.). The USDA says it’s safe in the small amounts that are used, and they don’t require the treated products to be labeled as being rinsed (“Safe and Suitable Ingredients”). But if your family is hitting up that dollar menu a couple times a week, it’s not so safe anymore. And you’re not just eating ammonia there; you’re eating it almost every time you get processed chicken and beef.

Clean food helps the earth. A sustainable farm doesn’t need to wash their animals with chemicals. The cows don’t get sick because they’re eating what’s natural for them. They provide and disperse healthy fertilizer that means you aren’t getting sick from your lettuce, like the spinach epidemic of 2008, or the Peter Pan peanut butter poison of 2007 (Food, Inc). Clean food is simple. I don’t know about you, but I like the sound of simple. It sounds like I could do it myself.

What is Fair Food?

I must warn you, this is the hardest bit to stomach.

We have an idea of the horror stories, but how often do you think about it? Cows standing ankle deep in their own manure, unable to roam because they’re packed so tightly in pens. Chickens with their beaks cut off, because they’re all so crazy and will peck each other to death. Cows eating dead chicken. Chickens eating dead cows. And do you think of how the human who process these animals are treated? It’s almost as bad as the animals. They’re dealing with contaminated meat, all day every day. They’re slicing for the same piece, over and over again, knives and saws and hooks swinging all over the place (Schlosser 172-173). For many of these people there are no other jobs in the area. Others are undocumented workers or recent immigrants who are afraid of speaking up (174). It makes you wonder how many times a person afraid of losing their job didn’t report an injury that may have affected your burger.
Fair Food is available to everyone. Current agricultural practices are loaded with inefficiencies. The subsidization of corn and soy products means that those ingredients are used to make food cheaper. It also means that unsubsidized foods like broccoli and free-range beef are out of the price range for many low-income families and schools (Food, Inc.).

What can you do?

You can make small changes to your lifestyle. And the changes do have to be small. I still don’t make it to the farmers’ market every week, and my family caves a couple times a month and pulls through the drive-through. But we do buy local whenever possible. With each passing grocery trip I spend less and less time in the middle aisles with the processed foods and more time in my kitchen with fresh produce. We can’t all just pull a 180. It’s impossible on a personal level, and our economy is very dependent on agribusiness. For change to be permanent we can’t just shock the system. You can start chopping your own potatoes instead of buying the frozen fries, you can eat foods that are in season and grown locally, or you can buy Finger Lakes wines and Central New York brews.

You can also join the CNY chapter of Slow Food. Slowfoodcny.org has a lot of information about what you can do to make a difference, starting right here. We have a unique opportunity to make changes here in Syracuse. The chapter hosts pot-luck dinners and workshops and has suggestions for talking to your legislators. There are small farmers abound in CNY. Maple syrup is delicious and our climate is perfect for harvesting it. Apples are big for us. Did you know that hops used to be a huge commodity for the area? Yep, we were the “brewery capital of the country” in the early 1900s. Maybe we can all work to bring that title back (“About”).

I want to believe that eating is one of the few natural things that humans still do. A basic physiological need. But even this simple act has been compromised, and it’s not healthy for many people. We’ve reached a point where a large part of our economy is dependent on the production of foodstuffs. It will be hard to change, but the laws of supply and demand still apply. A Wal-Mart purchaser of dairy explains that the store sells us what we demand. If we demand socially responsible foods, they have the power to change the infrastructure for supply (Food, Inc). I hope that we all start to think about our food a little more and begin to question where it comes from.

Don’t forget to go see Eric Schlosser, the author of Fast Food Nation and co-producer of Food, Inc. He’ll be speaking over in Hendrick’s Chapel at Syracuse University on March 1st, this spring.

 
Works Cited

“About.” Slow Food CNY. slowfoodcny.org. 2010. Web. Retrieved 23 Oct. 2010.

Food, Inc. Dir. Robert Kenner. Perf. Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser. Magnolia Home Entertainment, 2008. Film.

“Safe and Suitable Ingredients Used in the Production of Meat, Poultry, and Egg Products.” United States Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service. usda.gov. 7 Oct. 2010. Web. Retrieved October 24, 2010.

Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. New York: Harper Perennial, 2001. Print.

Schneider, S.. "Good, Clean, Fair: The Rhetoric of the Slow Food Movement." College English 70.4 (2008): 384-402. Research Library, ProQuest. Web. 23 Oct. 2010.

Spurlock, Morgan. Don’t Eat This Book: Fast Food and Supersizing of America. New York: Berkley Publishing Company, 2005. Print.

Friend, Follow, Connect/Stumble with and Subscribe to me

It's only been a year and a half since I last posted here. That's not so bad. I've procrastinated doing some things for longer. It took me four years to remember that I was only taking one year off between high school and college.

So what has happened in the past year and half? Well, it's funny you should ask... I don't really know. I know there have been some fun times. Phish came back, so I've seen them a few times. And Further too... this could explain why I don't have more to report on ;)

Time has been flying by. My daughter's birthday is just around the corner, so that should be a testimony to how quickly things change and how easily time slips away. I'm going to blink and she's going to be a teenager. Heck, she already thinks she is. I know how much trouble I'm really in when I look at her.

I have a year and half before I graduate. I spent a year and half in between blog posts, and now I have that same amount of time to get my act together. I need internships and job offers, and most importantly I need the confidence to know I can do this.

I have a plan for building this confidence, and you, reluctant blog reader, are going to help me. Are you ready? I'm going to establish a web presence. I will learn all the tricks for marketing myself, and hopefully I will be able to help others do it too.

Seeing as I have no idea how to do this now, you probably found this from one of my other sites. But if by chance you stumbled upon this page (Stumble Upon? That's a very useful tool) go check out my other pages; friend me, follow me, connect with me, stumble with me, watch me. Hopefully we all learn something from my successes and very public mistakes.

You know what's a mistake... turning on my computer when I should be reading my text books. meh, I like you more.

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