EDU255-Social Networks

In the assigned reading of Steve Hargadons article, there were several points that got my attention. The two that caught it the most are his ideas on failure and why people use social networks. First, it is ok to screw up. Having been in a messing up phase for a few weeks, I appreciated the thought that failures teach lessons and life goes on. Most failures or mistakes are not life threatening in a cyber world, and can be fixed or corrected. Of course that doesn’t take away the hit to the pride of our egotistic or perfectionist nature, but we still manage to move past our failures.
Regarding the use of Social Networks, I emphatically agree that social networks must fill a void, or be needed by the person(s) using them. It may be a need to be connected to several people that share your same thoughts or enjoy the same activities, or simply a need to find someone out there that is going through the same challenges in life. I have seen the SNS utilized in a positive way. A member of my family is battling breast cancer. She is only 25, and was having a hard time relating to other patients with the same diagnosis because of a generation (or 2) gap in age. They could relate on the levels of what was happening and the treatments, but the age difference really made it difficult to relate in the challenges they were facing in their everyday lives. Her physician referred her to a social network site of young women facing and dealing with breast cancer. What a valuable resource! It truly helped her to work through a lot of the tough stuff that faces younger women with this disease.
I also think social networks have a place in academics. New ideas can be developed through sharing with classmates. Revisions of projects can be seen to assist the instructor in determining if the kid is on track. Assignments could be done without paper. For me, that is not only the continuation of a ‘going green’ concept, but I might even find my desk!
In a world of health care, social networks can be useful, as shown above, but with the strict HIPPA laws in place, it must be used with great caution.