Are any people on it?
I have deleted my membership since becoming qualified as I feel that putting myself in the public domain in such a way is not appropriate as a social worker.
What are other's views?
i am a student and i use facebook a lot. i live 45 miles away from my university and therefore use it to keep in touch with fellow students for support when times are tough. i think that as long as you dont post anything outrageous or offensive or inappropriate on your page what is the issue?
Hi Ronnie the Rhino
There was a thread about whether to Facebook or not a few months back - check out the discussion by typing "facebook" in the search box at the top - it's in the social work profession stream I think. It might answer your questions.
Ed
Yes I use it for the same reasons as lizzer, and absolutely love it. I've got in touch with relatives I haven't seen for decades, friends similarly and when life is fast paced its a great way to keep in touch. You can set the security settings very high so no one can find you by searching for you, or slightly lower so they see your name but not your profile picture or your friends lists so can't tell if you are the Tony Blair they are looking for etc. The security settings are there for you to use my only grumble is that the basic setting to start with is low security and if you aren't computer savvy then you wont know how to set them high. I think the default settings should be high, and you then find out how to lower them if you want to.
I use it but I don't put much information on it. Enough for people who know me to find me but nothing personal really.
I use it but under a cartoon character's name and on the highest privacy settings!
I use it for now as a way to keep in touch with other students, but will delete my membership when I finish uni.
I have the highest privacy levels selected - I think!
what is appropiate shouldnt be defined by the state Michel foucalt father of socialogy warned eveyrone in the early seventies that the future would become a surveillence society. It is sad that we are so bothered about our reputations and the media that social work has become control -monitor-- and care as an afterthought. InIhospitals many patients particularly those who are mentally ill are not allowed to use a mobile phone and have to grovel to staff in order to smoke aciguarette to stay awake. Sure face book is dangerous, trains are dangerous but medication is always safe if you are fond of going to funerals. What i used to love about social work is the ability to negotiate boundaries now there are only barriers the same barriers race sex gender disabity and race again....and well religion thats a very hot potato indeed....respect is always a good one unless you run out of time or is it funding ithink its time not money that carers really run out of..........................
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/essex/7914415.stm
You are right in a way about putting yourself in the public domain being risky...but I would find it difficult to know where to draw the line. Should I back out of judging the local pet show for fear my picture will be in the paper and my colleagues and service users will know what I do in my leisure time and have a guess at where I live and where I worship? In my 35 year social work career this has not been a problem. If a service user wants to stalk you they will find a way even if you are not in the public domain. The risk of this happening should be considered in contentious cases as part of assessments of risk to staff...which I don't have to add (but I will) should form part of all staff supervision (!)
I am a facebook person and I don't find it threatening. For me it is like daily Christmas cards (without the round robin letters) and pen friends rolled into one. So completely do I identify it with my non-work time that I haven't even bothered to see if there are any social work groups there. If you came looking for me on facebook you would have a job as there seem to be a lot of us with the same name. Then you would have to work out what I look like which is not always obvious from the photo.
Then you could scroll down to see my friends, which is not going to tell you a lot. You might guess their racial background and first language. Maybe you might be appalled to see that most of them are younger than me? Quite a bit younger? Am I involved in inappropriate friendships perhaps? For shame! I can't help it if my contemporaries and older relatives won't go on facebook! And my kids and friends kids will insist on changing their names and addresses when they get married, so it looks as if I have a world-wide circle of friends aged 25-35. Hmm.
My non facebook friends labour under three misapprehensions which I think they've picked up from reading the red-tops. One is that potential or current employers can spy on you. Another is that you will get hacked into and given a trojan, virus or worm. Another is that it is exhibitionistic. I suppose all of these are possibilities, but as I am a professional risk assessor I would classify them as mild risks counterbalanced by the satisfaction and joy I get from participation. Oh, and I can take it or I can leave it alone. None of the people I see every day are facebook friends-I do have a life as well!
Incidentally, I think facebook would be a great example for teaching about social networks to A level students and new social workers!
Not such a black and white view - you exemplify the point I made about going into the library with the notepad. I am not talking about 'a one size fits all' for service users', I never said anything about them; it seems you are putting words in my mouth - I am talking about study and how much credence is put on the internet as a study aid. It is not a study aid. I remember my daughter being stuck on some homework, I said "let's check the internet" and wikipedia, the point did not sink in, so I resorted to using hard copy, reference books and the good old notepad; it worked. The internet is glorified telly, nothing more, nothing less. As for learning at school, my children attend IT, but the school does not treat it as the be all and end all of education - they are expected to handwrite most of their work. As for reading books and journals on a computer screen, my eyes start to hurt and I get a headache after prolonged use; you must have cyber-eyes if you don't experience the same thing.
In summary, the internet is not what it is cracked out to be, it encourages laziness, frivolity and cheating.
Facebook is crap for the simple reason that it discourages people from seeing them face to face, speaking to them over the telephone and writing them letters...it's so trashy!
i disagree as i have just got in contact with an American mental health social worker through facebook by being in a group that she is in, its going to be great as we will chat and see how things are different between the two countries and we will be able to share knowledge and best practice, if it wasn't for Facebook I would not have even known she existed. i believe that facebook does have its place but if this begins to take over from face to face contact with friends then that is a shame, but its free and i dont always have the time to trawl across the country to go and see people or spend money on long phone converstions, like anything its what you make it, as i said before in another post i also use it to get support from my uni colleagues in times of high stress when deadlines are to be met or if i dont quite get something.
i do agree however that the best way to learn is through books and writing but that is my prefered learning style, copying and pasting does nothing to make knowledge sink in. as Popeye says the majority of journals are availbale on line and it also gives us access to books that we cannot get in the library or if like me i live 40 miles away from my uni its not always possible to pop in.
You make some good points; but when Marshall McLuhan was writing in the 50's and 60's, he noted "In this electronic age we see ourselves being translated more and more into the form of information, moving toward the technological extension of consciousness", in other words, we lose our ability to express ourselves in a human way. In social work, we work with human beings not electronic logins; take a tip from an old git (who has seen it all, done it all and whose t-shirt is in the wash); the best social workers are those who are able to express themselves in any given human situation, whether it be at a meeting or a visit to a client. They are authentic and honest, no New Labour type weasling or spin - everything said is expressed as truth in an honest and powerful way. Also they have the guts to say they have got things wrong when they make errors. The internet cannot give you this. It is something which one acquires in hard and fast reality - getting up against it and generating a few sparks - you don't get this from a computer terminal.
My apologies - I didn't mean to "put words into your mouth" but it all seems so black and white I just wondered how that works in the real world?
I embrace technology, makes my life much easier this doesn't mean I copy and paste, am lazy (I find that offensive to be honest) or cheat, it doesn't encourage laziness, frivolity or cheating. I have no desire to cheat, I’m not in this just for my degree, I’m in this to learn, to work hard and become good at what I want to do.
Considering we are supposed to be evidence based practitioners the assumptions you make are ridiculous at best!
Pop
PS - Never take anything from Wikipedia and print out journals, you build up a fantastic little resource folder!
I did not say you are lazy - I said that the encourages it. The assumptions I make is that Facebook vis-a-vis human contact is crap, it hampers the ability to express oneself effectively in very real situations. An opinionated statement, but you know the scenarios, relationship breakdowns, job loss, bad news and the whole panoply of unpallatable things can be expressed electronically - this is clear evidence that we are becoming dependent on technology to behave in a craven way. We are quickly our ability to effectively express ourselves. As for academia, why should we bound by modern technology, there are alternatives?
This discussion has reminded me of an old parable, which I thought I would share:
fx7: In social work, we work with human beings not electronic logins; take a tip from an old git (who has seen it all, done it all and whose t-shirt is in the wash); the best social workers are those who are able to express themselves in any given human situation, whether it be at a meeting or a visit to a client. They are authentic and honest, no New Labour type weasling or spin - everything said is expressed as truth in an honest and powerful way. Also they have the guts to say they have got things wrong when they make errors.
In social work, we work with human beings not electronic logins; take a tip from an old git (who has seen it all, done it all and whose t-shirt is in the wash); the best social workers are those who are able to express themselves in any given human situation, whether it be at a meeting or a visit to a client. They are authentic and honest, no New Labour type weasling or spin - everything said is expressed as truth in an honest and powerful way. Also they have the guts to say they have got things wrong when they make errors.
These don't appear to be the one that get into Management!
fx7: Not such a black and white view - you exemplify the point I made about going into the library with the notepad. I am not talking about 'a one size fits all' for service users', I never said anything about them; it seems you are putting words in my mouth - I am talking about study and how much credence is put on the internet as a study aid. It is not a study aid. I remember my daughter being stuck on some homework, I said "let's check the internet" and wikipedia, the point did not sink in, so I resorted to using hard copy, reference books and the good old notepad; it worked. The internet is glorified telly, nothing more, nothing less. As for learning at school, my children attend IT, but the school does not treat it as the be all and end all of education - they are expected to handwrite most of their work. As for reading books and journals on a computer screen, my eyes start to hurt and I get a headache after prolonged use; you must have cyber-eyes if you don't experience the same thing. In summary, the internet is not what it is cracked out to be, it encourages laziness, frivolity and cheating. Facebook is crap for the simple reason that it discourages people from seeing them face to face, speaking to them over the telephone and writing them letters...it's so trashy!
So you're generalising your own experience to the internet as a whole?
People have different learning styles and the fact that your daughter did better with paper doesn't mean everyone does. The internet can be very useful for accessing reference journals and articles which are not easily available locally. It can be a very valuable source of useful information. The trick is to filter out the rubbish and concentrate on what you want. It's a tool and like any tool it's only as good as how you use it. I don't see any evidence that it encourages laziness or cheating - some people have always looked for the quick fix and some people have always plagiarised. As for frivolity - what's wrong with frivolity? Are people not allowed to have fun?
As for your last sentence - well, where do I start? I have friends on different continents. I don't get to see them face to face. Facebook allows me to easily maintain contact with them despite the fact we can't meet face to face. What does it matter if we don't write letters? Letters aren't inherently better than a facebook message or an email, they're just a different way of communicating. I haven't cut down face to face contact with any of my friends who are on facebook; facebook is an addition to our relationships and our other means of communicating. The trashy bits of facebook are trashy but that's down to the individual user.
surfer:These don't appear to be the one that get into Management!
Good point; but such people make very good leaders - think of Kennedy, Martin Luther, Martin Luther King, Ghandi, Barack Obama, Napoleon.
The problem is fundamental, we are saturated with management in all the spheres of day-to-day lives - time was Sainsbury's put so managers on the shop floor, the shelves did not get filled.
I'm on Facebook, and I have thought about it but I will stay on it when I qualify, but increase my privacy settings. Although I will be a social worker, I am also a person and I've found Facebook great to keep in touch with friends, as well as people I went to primary school with and not heard from for years! I don't think social workers should not use it, as long as our page isn't open for everyone to see, and we are careful about what we write on there, and who our friends are.
~ The race goes not always to the swift, but to those who keep on running ~
fx7- I am glad that for your daughter and yourself reading printed text on paper helps you both to learn and assimilate information better and prevents you getting headaches. However, for me, and many others like me who have photosensitive epilepsy, reading hard copy of printed can cause more difficulties than any other. If I read text on a bright white page, or on any colour page with the sun shining on it, the effect as I move my eyes along the page is to transfer to my brain the same type of signal as if I was watching a strobe light, and can in certain circumstances provoke a seizure. Using a computer screen to read a copy which is either stored and accessed electronically, or that I have scanned into my PC, enables me to reduce the screen brightness (I personally use a pale yellow background on my screen as default, as this makes reading esaier for me) which makes use safer than using a hard copy.
I wish I could sit in the library and take notes from books for hours. However, nowadays this is not possible, as many libraries, particularly those in universities, do not have the space to buy and store lots of books, so buy them electronically. This also means that one copy of a book can benefit several students at the same time, as all can access the same copy individually on any PC. Usually all journals are bought in this way, to avoid having whole floors allocated to storing paper copies which are often out of date a year after publication.
I will confess I am student who as you say lazily copies and pastes huge passages of text prior to actually writing an essay. This is one beauty of the internet, you see- by copying and pasting the author's original words (within copyright law obviously) instead of just summarising it into a research notes document (and later discovering my summarised notes conveyed an innacurate understandfing of the original, for example), I compile documents of the important sections of the orignal texts to refer back to as I compile my argument. Of research notes pages comprising often 30 or more pages however, possibly 20 words will find themselves into my 3000 word essay in direct quote form, despite having reference lists comprising 20+ cited sources all contributing to my argument. I can confirm your allegation that students who copy and paste lazily always pass (although not that they learn little)- in my MA so far I have achieved distinctions in every assessment, and am the only student out of 52 to do so.
Incidentally, I also have highly developed people skills and excellent inter-personal relational and communication abiltiies. Perhaps this is because by taking advantage of the internet to make both everyday and academic tasks quicker, I have more time available to practise them?
queenb: I am glad that for your daughter and yourself...I have more time available to practise them?
Wow! That's some response, but it exemplifies all that is wrong with the internet - information overload! Let's go back to Marshall McLuhan - We become what we behold. We shape our tools and then our tools shape us. The internet is alienating us from reality.
As for excellent inter-personal relational and communication abiltiies, what two things do you consider to be the most essential ingredients in this area of human activity? What two things are not available on the internet? It's glorified televisual trash.
breaking news...
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20090219/tuk-get-off-facebook-and-get-a-life-dba1618.html
fx7: queenb: I am glad that for your daughter and yourself...I have more time available to practise them? Wow! That's some response, but it exemplifies all that is wrong with the internet - information overload! Let's go back to Marshall McLuhan - We become what we behold. We shape our tools and then our tools shape us. The internet is alienating us from reality. As for excellent inter-personal relational and communication abiltiies, what two things do you consider to be the most essential ingredients in this area of human activity? What two things are not available on the internet? It's glorified televisual trash.
You're dismissing the entire internet as trash? I hope you don't display that degree of ignorance and narrow-mindedness towards your clients.
Kirst:You're dismissing the entire internet as trash? I hope you don't display that degree of ignorance and narrow-mindedness towards your clients.
The internet is good for watching the telly, listening to radio programmes, booking seats at the NFT, the theatre and ordering obscure books and cd's - that's the extent of it
As a learning experience - it is at best, it's information overload, you can get bogged down, confused and immobilised by the avalanche of stuff and then you have to fiff and faff around filterning, it's a wonder you have time to learn what you need to know, your mind is clogged up with all the initial processing. You get a book, you check through the contents and index, flip to the page and bingo - mind engages with the info and you learn. I can't say that I have learned anything worthwhile from it, although great fun, but it's a great thief of time. One could be doing better things like going out more often, such as going down the pub, visiting people, going for drives iand walks in the countryside - you can't beat these ex[eriences.
I am not ignorant with regard to the internet but I am certainly narrow-minded as one needs to temper one's access to it.
Schools and universities seem to regard the internet as a very useful learning tool - only one amongst several, but nonetheless essential in the modern world.
It is very possible to get distracted into useless stuff on the internet, but so it is in life in general.
You do know this is the internet, don't you?
Kirst: People have different learning styles ...... The internet can be very useful for accessing reference journals and articles which are not easily available locally. It can be a very valuable source of useful information. The trick is to filter out the rubbish and concentrate on what you want. It's a tool and like any tool it's only as good as how you use it. I don't see any evidence that it encourages laziness or cheating - some people have always looked for the quick fix and some people have always plagiarised.
People have different learning styles ...... The internet can be very useful for accessing reference journals and articles which are not easily available locally. It can be a very valuable source of useful information. The trick is to filter out the rubbish and concentrate on what you want. It's a tool and like any tool it's only as good as how you use it. I don't see any evidence that it encourages laziness or cheating - some people have always looked for the quick fix and some people have always plagiarised.
The point you make about filtering rubbish is very important because of the difficulty this causes when the internet is used by children for learning. Before children can usefully learn from the internet they first have to learn how to discern what is rubbish in order to filter it out and concentrate on that which is valuable.
I regularly use the internet for research and information although I personally find research on the internet inordinately time consuming (finding just the right phrase to 'google' and then filtering out the rubbish) when compared to working my way through an old-fashioned library. And like most modern books the information on the internet rarely has the same quality and depth of information compared to old fashioned books, a decline I first observed in hard copy encyclopedias some years ago.
But that's just my experience.
You probably need to start using some of the more academically oriented search engines. Google is great as an "all rounder", but there are better facilities out there (on the internet!) for serious research and study.
surfer:You probably need to start using some of the more academically oriented search engines.
Do you really think anyone logs onto the internet with any serious internet.
It's Cheltenham this week, I shall be looking at the races, examining form and placing bets through the www.I am looking forward to the next few days. I won't have learned anything, but at least I shall be having fun.
No one is going to engage in any dusty old research and learning when one catch up on Eastenders, order a pizza, babble away on Facebook, order the latest Coldplay CD (and regret it later) and play space invaders.
fx7: surfer:You probably need to start using some of the more academically oriented search engines. Do you really think anyone logs onto the internet with any serious internet.
Yes, they most certainly do. Remember that the internet has its origins in academia and the sharing of research papers.
We can all lack discipline, at times, in pursuing serious work, whatever medium we are using.
Hi fx7, Ref Cheltenham races yesterday. My butcher gave us a hot tip, Go Native. Guess what, we didn't bet on it and it came in 14.1 !!!!! My pal has just texted me to thank me. Hey ho that's life, well it's mine anyway. No not a gambler except for the odd bet on the National. Sorry don't expect this is the right forum but I'm sure you would appreciate the irony.
Mary B
fx7: Do you really think anyone logs onto the internet with any serious internet.
Well, yes. I use it for the College of Occupational Therapists website and the Health Professions Council website, both of which are definitely serious intent. I use it to research equipment and adaptations for clients - I spent a big chunk of yesterday looking at wheelchair incline lifts and platform lifts and steplifts. It would have taken me days, possibly weeks, to source suppliers and send away for catalogues without the internet. I used it last week to source suppliers of specialist chairs for people with disabilities, again that would have taken days or weeks to do without the internet. I use it for ordering my weekly shopping from the local farm shop. I use it to pay my bills, submit utility meter readings, manage my bank accounts... Last year I used it to set up a sponsorship account to make it easier for people I don't see often to sponsor me to do a 68 mile bike ride, and I raised nearly £4000 for LEPRA.
Sometimes I read textbooks and reference books. Sometimes I read "proper" novels. Sometimes I read "chicklit." Sometimes I read Calvin & Hobbes anthologies and sometimes I read Heat magazine. Sometimes I watch educational documentaries. Sometimes I watch serious television drama. Sometimes I watch soap operas. Sometimes I watch X-factor.
Sometimes I use the internet for serious purposes, sometimes I use it for fun (but I'd rather stick pins in my eye than use it to buy a Coldplay CD), in exactly the same way that I use books and television for serious purposes and for fun. The internet is not one homogenous mass, it's a wide, wide variety of different things - that's the genius of it. Useful functions, fun functions, all at the click of a mouse and the tap of a keyboard.
OK, you win
One redeeming feature, however, does stick-out
Kirst:I use it for fun (but I'd rather stick pins in my eye than use it to buy a Coldplay CD)
For this, you have access to Clare in the Community where Faceache gets a mention
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00j0h07/Clare_in_the_Community_Series_5_Its_Good_to_Talk/
surfer: You probably need to start using some of the more academically oriented search engines. Google is great as an "all rounder", but there are better facilities out there (on the internet!) for serious research and study.
Can you recommend any in particular then?
There is a guide to academic search engines at this link:
http://virtualprivatelibrary.blogspot.com/Scholar.pdf
thank you
So, let me get this right......................if I like something, it's good, if I don't like something, it's crap. In other words, it's all about me.
Is that about the strength of it?