Both my parents and I friended Ben right away, and he's very conscious of it. He's not really the type to gross on Facebook anyway (every time he catches me swearing, he says I owe him a dollar), but it's nice to know it won't be a problem.

Jake, on the other hand, I had to pointedly tell to make a filter since my brother, his uncle, actually defriended him for the language and the drug references. So proud. Ugh.

I WILL make it to Seattle one day, and dress up, and party with Jilli. I will, damn it.

And it will be SO FUN.

Allyson, that's a scary, scary story. I had not heard that before.

Also, WRT your niece, yeah, if she has more than 25 friends, she can change her name on FB. Most of my ex-students who've friended me have pseuds -- it's hard to figure out that LaDEE J_T STARFL*ER XOXO is really Jane Thomas from my ENG IV class.

And she should do it. Really.

LaDEE J_T STARFL*ER XOXO

Damn it! That name is taken?

Well, I might as well stick with my real one, then.

I'm thinking to tell Taylor that when it comes time for college applications, delete her account and start over, focussing on school. There is nothing bad there, just teenage angst and drama. But really, start afresh. Don't bare your personal life.

In 2009, a poll was taken of 400+ college's admission's officers. Only 9% admit to using social networking to evaluate candidates and of those 9% only 33% state that it had a negative impact on their decisions. (Also, interestingly, of that 9%, 31% say that it had a positive impact, so keep posting about your volunteer work!).

So 12 students weren't admitted to a college because of stuff on social networking sites. The problem is not as dire as people think. At All.

Nevertheless, given that it's relatively easy to manage your online presence by not posting stupid shit, or setting privacy tighter, or using a psued, it seems really stupid not to.

(I know this because two weeks ago, my students did a synthesis essay/research piece on the use of social network stuff to make admission or hiring decisions).

ETA: Hee! I found the link of the source: [link]

I'm more freaked that so many applicants try to friend admissions people!

I think she's locking everything down. It's frustrating, because she's a Massachusetts General Hospital Bicentennial Scholar. One of 26 who gets a 5k scholarship for every year in the program, and it goes to students interested in health and science. It's a big honking deal. And she sounds like a fucking moron in her public life...on purpose. I don't need to read that this 16 year old just smoked a shitload of pot and needs to get laid. We've all blocked her from our walls. I want to support this girl. And I do. But she was raised by wolves.

That's good info, Kat.

I think it's depressing that I knew those stats off the top of my head. I read 82 essays on the subject in the course of a week (that's only two periods, fwiw). At least the AP class was writing about a Joyce Carol Oates excerpt and then a Jhupar Lahiri short story.

My student load this year is NUTS. I'm getting gun-in-mouth about it.

Chuck D is pissed. His tweets make me feel incredibly sad. And I was already incredibly sad.

I keep calling her my niece, she's my cousin. My older cousins do that to me, and it makes me bananas. I need to stop.