Why Social Networking and Facebook?

Added to the resources this week are two short YouTube videos that will challenge your bias toward social networking (SN).  One is of millennials (those born 1983 to 2003) speaking from their perspective about how organizations can reach out to them and engage them.  I was surprised at the responses referring to social media (though I am not a millennial!)  The other is a fast paced video of visual blasting statistics on the amazing progression of technology in the past 5 to 10 years.  Amazing!  One that captured my attention specifically showed the contrast of traditional media such as newspaper and basic television, over the many years it has existed, compared to the impact of social media such as facebook (FB), myspace, twitter, podcast in only the past six years!  Yes, FB was conceptualized six short years ago by Harvard student, Mark Zuckerberg and friends.

Contrast these video images to these photos, taken just last week in the Rift Valley of Kenya.  Samuel, a young, millennial Maasai man, educated through high school, is living now in his traditional village area.  Yet, he has a smart phone and watched on FB, from across the globe, for instant updates throughout the day of his dear friend's wedding ( my son) events in Bristol, TN!   Benjamin, a traditional Maasai herdsman, has been FB my husband for months helping make arrangements for this current trip.

Technology and globalization are here.  Technology has come fast, moves fast, and is challenging all corners of our daily life, especially education.  Just to know the correct technological term to use may have changed from yesterday, let alone the information base we can access today that we could not access yesterday.  Where will this take education, health education, nursing education?

Can you believe 175 million people log on Facebook each day, ages 13 and up?  Though this may not be our non-millennial favored venue for health education with patients or staff or students, it is a resource of unlimited potential, worldwide.   Aja (2000) speaks of traditional social networks, those among his Igbo tribe in Nigeria, bound together by community identity, age groups, and kinship seeking resources for suffering members after the tragidies of the civil war.  Traditional social networking is among the people, of the people and for the people.  Why SN and FB?  Technology is here, it is global and it is the modern media.  Though I do not believe modern media will replace traditional social networks, SN is of this generation.  FB is simple, cost effective, and utilized daily.  Nurse educators, let's get creative and educate 175 million people a day!