The Interfolio Blog

Everyone wants to predict the next technology trend, and no time is so rife with interesting, sometimes correct, often far-reaching or over-simplified predictions for trends as the beginning of a new year. This week is no exception, as Inside Higher Ed columnist and blogger Joshua Kim garners some serious higher ed web attention with his piece proclaiming that Facebook is moving toward irrelevancy and disuse. 

I beg to differ. Facebook is not losing its relevancy. I'm not here to argue that it won't someday fall to the wayside, but Joshua's argument as to why Facebook is irrelevant misses the entire point of social networking and online communications tools. And it flies in the face of actual numbers, which show that Facebook is in fact NOT losing its relevance. It was the number one most visited site in the US on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

What Joshua fails to acknowledge and what is the root cause of many a social media fail, in higher ed as in many other industries, is that different social media tools exist and are popular and useful precisely because of a fundamental difference in purpose and use. Facebook was never meant to be a learning tool, no more than Twitter was meant to allow you to share photos from your weekend trip to NYC. The reason Joshua believes Facebook is failing is because it is not good for sharing links or gathering a following of professionals in his field. But that's not what Facebook is for. He also laments that he cannot use Facebook to cull through pertinent information to his field and learn about new trends or articles relevant to his study and interests. Also not what Facebook has ever been about.

Facebook began as, has always been, and continues to be a personal network. A network that allows friends (friends are people you know personally and care about, not hundreds of professionals in your field, many of whom you have never met) to share their photos, thoughts, updates on what they are doing, links etc. directly with a limited community of approved acquaintances. The entire network, from privacy settings to user interface, is set up to provide a niche network feeling. Is Facebook slowly becoming a more open network? Yes. Does it still provide a far more gated community experience for most users. Definitely.

Enter Twitter. Not the same animal at all. A far more open platform that allows less file storage and personal profile creation but much more freedom to share with anyone anywhere and connect to people you've never even met but whose thoughts or work you find interesting. It has a totally different interface allowing rapid real time search for information posted by anyone, not just your friends. It allows you to share links, ideas, news etc. with the whole world immediately and concisely. It also allows you to attract and follow professionals, brands, thought leaders and friends. You can connect with anyone, there are no limits. All these elements make it an entirely different tool than Facebook. You may prefer one to the other, which is fine, but they are not as much competing as they are fulfilling totally different needs.

The danger is that in failing to understand the fundamental differences and purposes of each different tool, we fail to understand how to best use these utilities and where to spend our time and energy. Should you be trying to build a professional network on Facebook? No! That's not the purpose of Facebook, and you'd probably end up very disappointed by the result. But you CAN build a professional network on Twitter, or LinkedIn. Should you try to share pictures of your Bahamas vacation with your mom on Twitter? No! The whole world would end up seeing you in your bikini. Obviously these are over-simplified examples, but the point is that if we are going to be using technologies like these in the classroom, we need to understand their fundamental purposes and use them to their fullest capacity taking those purposes, audiences and capabilities into account. Understand the fundamental audience and purpose of a network before you decide how it should best be used, and that goes for use outside the classroom as well.

Facebook is still very relevant for educators; I know many who use it as a way to communicate with students and keep in touch with personal acquaintances in their fields. Students continue to use Facebook as a core way of managing relationships and communication, much more than e-mail. Assuming that the tool is dying is simply failing to realize how it is being used. Are there other and better online tools for a strict learning purpose? You bet. But that doesn't mean Facebook is dying. It just means it's different. Joshua notes that the reason he doesn't go to Facebook anymore is because all it has is a bunch of personal info he doesn't care about. That may be, for Joshua, but there are plenty of people who do care, very deeply, about all that personal data. And that's what made Facebook the number on site on Christmas this year. Yes Virginia, Facebook is still relevant.