About Facebook

Hello to all of my favorite students:

I have been meaning to let you know, but I keep forgetting. Last year Facebook was introduced to me by my traditional day time students as a way to communicate with them, and it worked well. I didn’t use it for anything else. Since then (as I am sure is the same for many who now use Facebook), it has morphed into another creature altogether. I have all types of friends (or just people I once knew!) who have found me on there from varying chapters of my life: elementary school, high school, college, grad school, post grad, camp counselors, former associations, committees, people I once worked with…you get the idea.

Now, I use if for an entirely different purpose, which I had to focus in on a few weeks ago (to figure out what the purpose was of having this thing).

It is for me to keep in touch with those who I have lost touch with, or for friends and family who live far away. It is just a personal decision on my part, but for me, knowing what 100 + students are doing any given time of the day was not information I don’t not only not need to know, it is often information I don’t really want to know. Often, the people I want to keep in touch with are “bumped” from the homepage for me to know that a student “just ate hot soup”, “procrastinated studying and pulling an all nighter” “just started writing my paper that is due in 6 hours” and “wonders why her boyfriend doesn’t understand her”.

Sometimes, it is inappropriate... for example, when a “friend” of one of my students posts a photo (or an entire album) on THEIR wall, I see what they were doing over the weekend, or on vacation, and often I doubt it is something that they intended for me to see ) especially when I get the “sick” call the following morning. On the flip side, I don’t want hundreds of people, especially current students to know everything going on in my personal life. And the more the “friend list” grows, the less I can account for what others post whether as of late political comments (i.e. Prop 8 Stuff on both sides) or just random strange comments that can be interpreted in many ways.

I am sure you get the idea. I’d rather keep it personal (and for you to keep it personal) during our class time together;) We have plenty of ways to communicate, via email, office phone, my mobile phone as well as in person during office hours and in class. I do have former students and interns on Facebook but that is because the relationship has changed, and we want to keep in touch.

I just wanted to let you know about my decision. I am not dumping you individually, I’m just making it a rule for myself: no current students on Facebook. However, I will be keeping the HBSE group on Facebook. We can all be in the same group without being “friends”.

If you have any questions about it, please feel free to contact me!

Sincerely,

Dr. Holmes :)