VGCC Student discusses Facebook
Vance-Granville Community College student Lynwood Roberts, II of Oxford recently made a presentation for his fellow students, as well as college faculty and staff, entitled “Saving Face on Facebook.” Roberts (pictured above) made the presentation as part of his participation in the North Carolina Community College Student Leadership Institute (SLI). He was among just 30 students from across the state selected to participate in the 2010-2011 SLI, which seeks to enhance the leadership quality of student participants and to better prepare them for professional and civic responsibilities.
Roberts’s presentation on March 2 was intended to educate college students on the positive and negative effects of using the popular social networking site, which boasts more than 500 million active users, who spend 500 billion minutes per month on the site. Roberts, who has been a Facebook user since 2006, said that the site, which is popular worldwide, makes it easy for any person or group to create a page and post large amounts of information online. Facebook is particularly popular with younger people. “Some teenagers are now calling it ‘Fakebook’ because many people are using it to present a less than honest image of themselves,” Roberts reported.
He listed Facebook’s positive effects for students, including that “it helps groups of students to communicate information and stay connected, there are several ‘apps’ geared toward helping students, and students and graduates can learn to use it to promote their own businesses.” On the negative side, Facebook can lead to a lack of privacy. “Students need to be wary of posting personal details that you don’t want your future employers to read, and you can find yourself being associated with others who are doing something embarrassing,” Roberts said. Also, Facebook use is becoming addictive for many people, and may promote weak virtual long-distance relationships over face-to-face interaction. As for safety, Roberts said the best advice — obvious though it may seem to some — is: “You need to know a person well in the real world before making them your ‘friend’ on Facebook.”
Roberts, a student in the College Transfer program at VGCC, is set to graduate in May. He is a participant in the college’s Male Mentoring Program, has earned Dean’s List honors and received an endowed VGCC scholarship.
