It’s a good thing University of Michigan now has a graduate program in social computing. “After years of worrying about how much time freshmen spend on Facebook, schools are incorporating the study of social networking, online communities and user-contributed content into new curricula on social computing,” the Wall Street Journal reports. Programs like this, it adds, tend to draw students with … [Read more...] about New field: Social computing
Search Results for: bullying
Social Web’s complexity: Illustration
The story on WhosaRat.com, though not about youth, clearly illustrates how complicated the user-driven Web is. The site - whose mission is to out “rats” (informants or what judges call “cooperators”) by publishing court records – is a lot like a social-networking site. It “offers biographical information about people whom users identify as witnesses or undercover agents. Users can post court … [Read more...] about Social Web’s complexity: Illustration
Profile of a teen online victim
David Finkelhor, one of the US's top experts in online youth victimization, called her "Jenna" at the forum in Washington, D.C., where he was presenting his research. In what he described as a fairly typical predation case…. Jenna was 13 and "from a divorced family, frequented sex-oriented chatrooms, had the screenname 'Evilgirl.' There she met a guy who, after a number of conversations … [Read more...] about Profile of a teen online victim
Canada’s reax to Web 2.0…
...are just as largely ignorant as US ones, it's a little comforting to know. The latest response in Canada, in this case to Facebook, was an announcement from the Ontario government last week "that it was banning access to the site for thousands of bureaucrats and elected officials," law professor Michael Geist writes in the Toronto Star. "While the merits of Facebook are open to debate – some … [Read more...] about Canada’s reax to Web 2.0…
Obama’s MySpace: Lesson for teens?
What happened this week with Barack Obama’s MySpace profile could happen to anyone, and it’s a useful illustration for people trying to understand ways cyberbullying happens on the social Web. One way: A friend sets up a blog or profile for someone. The someone begins to feel that friend is misrepresenting her and suggests maybe she should take over her own profile. The profile creator takes … [Read more...] about Obama’s MySpace: Lesson for teens?