mod3

Jordan Lapetz
Anne-Marie Yerks
Composition 106
3 November 2008
Libraries: Social or Educational?
I remember when I was around seven or eight years old and my older sister had to go the local library after school so she could get her school research done. Now, just ten years later, I am sitting on my couch doing this paper. It almost seems unfair that I can do the same, if not more research, in less time and much easier. However, when I was assigned this paper I did put in an effort to go to our college’s library and went through some journals to see the different types of media on social networking relating to libraries; yet again, my internet at home was more helpful in getting things done. Even when I was at the library, I did not get much done in terms of raw data. Along with everybody else on the second floor, I was bouncing back and forth with Facebook, MySpace, and an Encyclopedia or two. I realized I could not get any real work sitting here because everyone around me was doing the same thing I was doing. So the next time I went over to the library I took my laptop and my research tools up to the fourth floor; I got some work done. Then it popped into my head, everyone on the fourth floor wants to get things done. They are not here to waste time; they are here to get their homework done and go home. The majority of the people on the floor were older than twenty-four it seemed, and they also seemed to take school more seriously. Thinking back on it, it is slightly sad that in a high rated university there is little real educational work being done in the library that we students pay for. In theory, a library should be used to higher our educational standards, enlighten our minds, and enrich our culture, not sitting in a group of classmates on social networks gossiping; along with our social networks, it shows that our age plays a role in our priorities and the way we carry ourselves. With age comes maturity and with maturity comes professionalism.
My thought is this, how does age relate to what we do in our classrooms and libraries. An undergraduate seems more likely not to study or go to class than a graduate student, in my opinion. Mark-Shane E. Scale’s article states in Table 2 that the largest percentage of social networking users are students, 98%, followed by graduate students with 46% (the not viewable group represented 48%). This data alone makes my theory correct. The reasons may be due to the fact of students have more free time and they are still very socially connected to their peers, whereas graduate students are more focused and determined in their education and professional lifestyles.
This drags me to another thought: how do the two groups, students and graduate students, represent themselves on their online profiles? Looking at the same article, it breaks down the personal information the two groups share online. As I read the data, the graduate students seem to be more protective and secure on what they display, and who can see it (Scale). In the PDF file we were given in class it defined age differences under “The literature on online social networks”. The section quotes a Golden Rule from Cornell University; it states
“Don’t say anything about someone else that you world not want said about yourself. And be gentle with yourself too! What might seem fun or spontaneous at 18, given caching technologies, might prove to be a liability to an on-going sense your identity over the longer course of history.”
The paragraph spells out to me a very good moral: do not say things that you do not want to be repeated or brought back to you five years later. This is why graduate students have more professional and private social networking profiles. Those students realize what can be done and how any information either about them, or what they say, may come back to haunt them. These days the younger culture does not realize that what they say verbally and what they write, or type, has consequences. It is a foolish notion that things they post when they are 18-23 will suddenly disappear in five years. David Epstein states that a lot of these people on social networks “lack judgment” which is over 100 percent correct. Many personal, stream of consciousness blogs often go over the limit. Most people do not connect the point of what you say on the internet will be with you forever. Just try Goggling your peers and I promise social network sites will come up.


“Charnigo, Laurie and Paula Barnett-Ellis” March 2007. 3 November 2008. -40d7-a919-af47a38b9258/Assignments/6df91329-0a40-45a0-bb06-
“Epstein, David” 3 October 2005. 3 November 2008.

“Scale, Mark-Shane E.” 2008. 3 November 2008.