About Face

The Other Side of Social Networking

By Anne Macleod Weeks

When the whole MySpace/Facebook dilemma reared its ugly head, my school decided to have the students propose a solution for monitoring our students’ pages, rather than blocking the popular Web sites. As a boarding school that is also a laptop school, we faced the special challenge of having to address the use of these sites beyond the traditional class day. We brought in experts to educate students about the dangers of such social networking, and we balanced this with instruction for faculty members on the myriad educational uses of the sites.

We have teachers using MySpace.com creatively in English, Spanish, and chemistry projects, and our student board has been effective in monitoring inappropriate postings among their peers. As a result, I was confident that we adults knew what was out there. I should have known better.

One morning, a senior who had received a substantial scholarship to a New England college entered my office and said she had changed her mind about going there. Surprised, I asked why. The girl explained that she had spent the weekend researching the college’s current students on Facebook.com, and now felt that she “just wouldn’t fit in.” What had she seen that made her feel that way, I asked. A student of color, she replied, “Do you know how many student pages I had to go through before I found one black person?” She added, “And the black students I found were just sitting in their rooms in the pictures, some drinking. There were no pictures of them out in the city,...