NRHEG Star Eagle

137 Years Serving the New Richland-Hartland-Ellendale-Geneva Area
Newspaper of Record for NRHEG School District
Newspaper of Record for Waseca County, MN
PO Box 248 • New Richland, MN 56072

507-463-8112
email: steagle@hickorytech.net
Published every Thursday
Yearly Subscription: Waseca, Steele, and Freeborn counties: $52
Minnesota $57 • Out of state $64

“Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” This quote is often attributed to Mark Twain, though his actual words were somewhat different. (Someone must have seen it differently on the Internet, so it must be true.)

I thought of this quote the other week when I logged into Facebook and saw rumors spreading about the death of a dear friend from our area. I knew she was sick, but had heard positive reports recently, so I was shocked. Thankfully, this report was also exaggerated, though it was a good example of how things can get out of hand due to social media.

Last week I talked about some of the positive aspects of Facebook and its ilk. Now it’s time for the flip side.

The previous example was not the first time I had seen an untrue rumor online. It happens too frequently. It’s a little like playing the old telephone game. One person tells another something, but by the time it reaches the end of the line, the message is so garbled as to be unrecognizable from the original.

As English teachers, we constantly tell our students to double-check online sources. Unless you find something on CNN or ESPN or some other major outlet (that does its own research), don’t trust it. The same should go for rumors: you’d better be sure before you put something on your Facebook status or tweet something.

And it’s not just our kids. Look at all the professional athletes who tweet before they think. Those athletes often face monetary repercussions. What kids don’t realize is they could be affected monetarily down the line for things they post now.

Here is a difficult concept for our teenagers to grasp today: privacy is gone unless you personally do something about it. Facebook defaults quite often to allowing everyone to see everything you post. And teens being teens, they often post trash, picking fights online because it’s safer than doing so in person. College kids post drunken pictures, not thinking about who might see them.

Having been part of interview teams the last two years at school, you’d better believe I snooped around potential candidates’ Facebook profiles. This has become common practice in the business world. If you find someone who’s posting pictures online of getting drunk and worse, is that someone you want working for you?

You can set your privacy settings so only people you “friend” can see what you post, but there’s another problem. Some people friend anyone who asks. I’ll occasionally get requests from people I don’t recognize. I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes I haven’t seen a former student in some time, and they may have a different name through marriage, so I’ll look for mutual friends to try and make a connection. If nothing rings a bell, no go.

I’ve asked kids about the number of friends they have and just how many are people they actually know outside this online world. The answer is often startlingly small. I talked to my own kids this summer about online predators and how to filter people who “follow” them on Snapchat or Instagram.

Here’s another area that leads to struggle: time. I do have to keep an eye on the clock when I’m logged in. It’s very easy to get focused in a poker room or keep playing some Zuma until I beat my high score. As I write this, I’m going back and forth to check if I have another life yet in Candy Crush while I contemplate my next thoughts. It’s way too easy to waste an hour in front of the computer, not being very productive. I can’t imagine if I got Facebook and Twitter connected to my phone!

Still, as I mentioned last week, social media is not going away. We need to focus on the positive and work on training our youth to overcome the negative before it gets much more out of hand. Otherwise, some people might quickly learn the fable of the boy who cried wolf if they continue to spread those rumors.

Word of the Week: This week’s word is vaguebooking, which is purposely writing an unclear social media status in order to garner attention, as in, “She was vaguebooking by putting ‘Don’t know what to think anymore,’ and trolling for attention from others instead of just writing what was wrong.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!


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