With a high school senior in the house and the Facebook everywhere, there’s no way I could resist this great little piece from the Social Media Collective. Bonus points for layering in two of my current favorite sociological concepts: diversity and homophily. Give it a read and let me know what you think—especially you high school seniors and college freshmen out there.
(Thanks to Karl Bakeman @wwnsoc for the heads-up on this one !)
Comments 3
M S Embser-Herbert — March 7, 2013
The real question here is how you've ended up with a high school senior in the house. My, how time flies...
Friday Roundup: March 8, 2013 » The Editors' Desk — March 8, 2013
[...] “Facebook and the Freshman Experience,” by Doug Hartmann. In which a man all-too-familiar with college freshmen recommends some reading. [...]
Jack D — March 16, 2013
Doug, good link here. I have a couple of quick thoughts.
1. Isn't the process of selecting a college already homophilic? High school seniors and their parents look for schools all kinds of ways, but I bet that a lot of them use the same basic criteria that I did: "do the people at this place think the way I want to learn to think?" It's how I ended up at a small liberal arts school which, despite admirable financial aid programs, need-blind admissions, and diversity considerations, remains mostly white and mostly affluent.
2. Do we know anything about how many requests colleges actually receive to change roommate and dorm placements because of difference perceived through facebook, or about how many of these are actually honored? Maybe facebook creates the opportunity to get concerned, but not the ability to do something anything it preemptively.