Facebook Challenges

Did you ever go camping with your friends - no adults around to chaperone? Did you stay up all night pigging out on marshmallows? Tell scary and/or dirty stories? Go skinny-dipping? Didn't it feel great to be alone, away from the world, doing whatever you felt like, saying whatever you felt like?

But what if you weren't really "away" from the world? You would probably act a little bit differently. Well, this is the kind of false security you might feel about Facebook. After all, it was designed as a community for college students, right?

Face it: anyone can get on Facebook. Your Great-Aunt Susan who teaches chemistry at Penn. Your Dean of Students. Your mom! Still want to post that story about skinny-dipping?

So what are your university administrators doing on Facebook? And why would they care what you post?

Some of them want to connect. Let you know about a new scholarship. Invite you to a lecture by a visiting superstar in your field. Maybe just get you to see them as someone you can go to with a question or problem. They've figured out that putting a flyer on a kiosk may not be the best way to get your attention. So they go where they know they'll find you!

And then there's the serious side. You could call it "discipline." Or you could call it "duty of care." Since they have the ability to check on what you're up to, some university administrators feel that they have to. And if they see that you're up to something you shouldn't be, they have to take action.

Am I telling you this to spoil your fun? Only a little bit. You can still be crazy, funny, quirky, unique. Just don't be naked or drunk on Facebook.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Don't post a photo if you wouldn't want your parents, your professors, and your future employers to see it. And don't count on being able to take the picture down someday when you're ready to reinvent your image. Once you put a picture out there, it's out there for people to download and save for posterity.