Adults: All Aboard for the Web 2.0 Train

According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, social networking has become more mainstream among adults. That includes me, at least the last time I checked the crow’s feet in my 10x magnification mirror.

According to the folks at Pew, the number of adult internet users who have a profile on an online social network site has more than quadrupled in the past four years — from 8% four years ago, to 35% now. That’s amazing, and encouraging. I have conducted a number of workshops on the subject of social media, and I still get attendees who look like deer in the headlights when I talk about Facebook, LinkedIn, and the whole sphere of social networking and social bookmarking.

On the other hand, I get plenty of people — of all ages — who are eager to dive right in.

Although those of us over the age of 18 stumbling through the social networks should be proud of ourselves for trying, don’t get cocky. We’re still light-years behind those lucky kids between the ages of 12 to 17. A whopping 65 percent of those crazy kids have an online profile on one of the big social networks — Facebook and MySpace, primarily.

It seems that the older we get, the less use we seem to have for social networks.

According to the Pew study, 75% of adults ages 18-24 use these networks, compared to just 7% of adults 65 and older. “At its core, use of online social networks is still a phenomenon of the young,” the study says.

Other age groups and their use of social networking sites:

– 57 percent of those aged 25 to 34

– 30 percent of those ages 35 to 44

– 19 percent of those aged 45 to 54

– 10 percent of those aged 55 to 64

Another interesting finding: We adults use social networks for professional and personal reasons, and we often maintain multiple profiles, generally on different sites.

Librarians are Cool

Image via Wikipedia

I know I’m dating myself here, but I don’t remember ever having a cool librarian as a kid. Instead, the librarians I knew had pursed lips, shushed people for a living, and slept with the Dewey Decimal System.

Not today. Librarians are Twittering, Facebooking, blogging, wiki-ing, and definitely not sleeping with the Dewey Decimal System.

If you want proof, take a look at the Library page of the Online Education Database, which currently contains reviews of 1,081 programs from 86 accredited online colleges. There, you’ll find tons of references written by and for librarians about using social media in libraries around the country.

Here’s what the Library page says about Twitter, for example:

Twitter is a free communication and social networking tool which allows you to convey short messages of up to 140 characters to your circle of friends via the Twitter website, SMS, email, IM, or other Twitter client. Messages appear not only within your profile on Twitter, but are sent to your community of followers who have signed up to receive your updates. Often referred to as microblogging, this new phenomenon has caught on with over 300,000 users on Twitter alone including Barack Obama and John Edwards. Twitter recently made the cut as one of Time’s Best 50 Websites of 2007. Librarians are using it to communicate at conferences and events and to keep up with developments in the field, and libraries have begun using it to promote their services.

Among their listings are librarian-only applications and networks like:

Shakespeare High Cafeteria: This online tribute to Shakespeare features active discussions about Shakespeare news, book clubs, a creative writing center, “staff lounge,” study help and teaching ideas.

Readers Read: Browse forum topics like publishing industry, general fiction, mystery/thriller, children’s books and nonfiction.

TeacherLibrarianNing: Educators and librarians get together on this network, where you can join groups, post photos, upload videos and more.

The Shifted Librarian: Librarians connect through this blog about library news, trends and of course, books.

Librarian Facebook Application: This Facebook app connects you to other librarians who can answer your search questions.

They also list a number of social media sites for librarians and book-lovers, including:

Shelfari: This blog about books and book collecting has a MySpace page and a Facebook application.

GoodReads: Keep track of what you and your friends are reading through this online networking site.

BookJetty: BookJetty lets users organize, rate and review books and even look up books in the site’s database of over 300 libraries around the world. Users also get a blog that lets them show off a “bookshelf” to friends.

MySpace Books: This ultimate social networking site has a page just for books, connecting readers, authors and those in the book industry.

Books iRead: Another Facebook app that lets you rate, review, and share books you’ve read.

You can also catch a number of 21st century posts on the site, including these:

50 Ways to Use the Wii In Your Library

100 Essential Firefox Add-Ons for Librarians

e-Learning Reloaded: Top 50 Web 2.0 Tools for Info Junkies, Researchers & Students

100 Ways to Use Your iPod to Learn and Study Better

Need any more proof that librarians are cool? I don’t think so. Now shush!

MySpace and the Principal

Mark Walsh over at EdWeek’s School Law Blog reported recently that an Indiana Supreme Court has thrown out a case involving a middle school student who posted a tirade against her principal on none other than the social networking site MySpace. The student was charged with harassment for messages she aimed at Greencastle Middle School Principal Shawn Gobert, after a dispute about body piercings. The student also allegedly set up a fake MySpace “group” that included vulgarities and Gobert’s name in the title.
Before getting to the state supreme court, the case was heard by an Indiana trial court, which found the student delinquent on the harassment charges. But then the state appeals court reversed that decision, ruling that the student was protected by the First Amendment.
In its decision on May 13, the state supreme court ruled in favor of the student, but on the basis that the fake MySpace page had never authorized the principal to be one of its viewers. The court also cited Indiana’s harassment statute, which states that a person breaks the law only when they communicate a message with “the intent to harass, annoy, or alarm another person but with no intent of legitimate communication.”
The student’s postings showed that she clearly wanted to communicate her anger and criticism about the principal’s disciplinary action, the court said, and “merely intended to amuse and gain approval or notoriety from her friends, and/or to generally vent anger for her personal grievances.”
An interesting case that raises all kinds of questions about the First Amendment, the Internet and social networking sites that are still primarily populated by teens.
If you want to read about a fascinating case with similar overtones, check out the New York Magazine’s controversial examination, “Testing Horace Mann,” from its March 30 issue. It’s a disturbing look at the way students used FaceBook, but an even more disturbing examination of the adults involved in the scandal.