Students use the internet and technology to maintain their schedules — and now their lives. A growing number of students are turning to “social network” Web sites that allow individuals to digitize their identities while connecting them to other users who may have something in common.
The significance is beyond just a trend. Computer and Information Science professor Mike Hennessy said computers are going beyond the desktop and becoming common accessories for computer users, from PDAs to implanted, or “wearable,” computers that carry personal information such as medical information in case of a health emergency.
Hennessy said some PDA and cell phone users in Japan meet one another based on mobile profiles on their gadgets, which are shared with other people in range of that device. In America, the trend is catching on and students especially have been willing to put their identity on the Internet through
social networks.
One example is Thefacebook
(www.thefacebook.com), a Web site where students enrolled in one of the many site-supported universities can find and befriend others with similarities. Almost every single item added into a person’s profile is searchable — name, location, class, interests, relationship status — and can bring up results of other students who share similar characteristics.
This marks a big difference from earlier Web services. Today, social networking services are decentralized so users, instead of the service itself, find and connect to each other on their own terms.
Other sites might be useful for cataloging and research purposes.
del.icio.us, a “social bookmarking” tool, is one site that allows users to save any noteworthy bookmarks onto their account. At first glance, it may not seem too important to users and students in particular to simply place a link on a site unless they are in a different location from where the site was originally bookmarked. But beyond seeing what links have been saved, users can also put keywords on the links that apply to the Web
site, which makes del.icio.us a
powerful tool.
For instance, a student doing research on political current events can find links from every other del.icio.us user on categories
as vague as “politics” to links pertaining to specific countries
or politicians.
Joshua Schachter, creator of del.icio.us, said he initially started the program to simply store bookmarks, but he has since added features and let others modify the site to fit their needs.
As for keywords and the potential to make personal content more searchable, Schachter said, “It’s a useful technique and can be abused, much like every other way to organize data for other people; attention is valuable and people will always seek to deflect or divert it.”
But organizing life through technology is not always a better solution; one burnt-out student who
no longer depends on technology
to schedule his life is computer
and information science major Derek Baker.
“At one point I had a Palm for a year but (organizing) faded out — I’d always be concerned with battery life or having to write it down separately,” Baker said. “But now I scribble on my hand and I see a lot of people do that. You’ll never lose the note but it might fade out.”
While some students may not jump on the bandwagon to organize and profile their identity on the
Internet, Hennessy said many
students are now embracing
the practice.
“People use blogs where they talk about everything that’s happened in their day and their persona is public,” Hennessy said. “Maybe it’s a generational thing.”

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