Hiya don!

I suspect "Facebook" (etc) is rather a generational thing -- and perhaps is more interesting to the young than older people. But I admit I could be wrong about this. (Recently a few friends have tried to invite me to "directories" like "LinkedIn", which I also stubbornly decline. And wish they wouldn't give away my e-mail address without asking me first.)

Personally, I can construct a web page whenever I want -- and I'm not really interesting in accumulating the largest possible collection of anonymous "friends." I'm not into hearts, flowers, goth images, or cute music -- and that may be a stereotype, but that's what comes to my mind when I think of "Facebook." And I have zero desire to indirectly hand my actual social network over to a company about which I know nothing.

I was talking to a (meatspace) friend last night over dinner, and we were talking about the (lack of) relevance of computers to a good education. She was mocking educational "experts" who intoned darkly that you couldn't be well educated without access to lots of computers at a fairly young age: "Well, how on earth were people educated before?" (Quite well, apparently, given today's scores.)

The ironic thing is, we've both worked as software architects, which is sort of the "top" of that particular technical venue, in some sense -- and neither of us used computers until just before our preteen years. (And we know a lot more about the subject than most the young people out there, including often (in my experience) many who are graduating with software degrees.)

Mentioning Facebook (she has kids that age), she responded to the view which said: "Oh, that's great, they're becoming 'computer literate'" by pointing out they're only becoming users of software. It's a bit like implying that a child is learning about telecommunications and electronics because they watch a lot of TV. :-) Yes, they'll learn a bit by browsing the web, but learning to click on a web page (and post messages in half-literate unpunctuated pigeon slang) isn't exactly something to write home about.

Fad? New way to expand the world?

Facebook isn't a fad -- virtual worlds (of which Facebook is a fairly simple example) are here to stay. (World of Warcraft, Second Life, etc being more sophisticated worlds.) Unless Hollywood has their way (and they may yet) we'll increasingly see "entertainment integration" where TV becomes more like the Internet becomes more like Software becomes more like real ife, which becomes more like TV.

The real question in my mind is: "Is this a good thing?" I don't think you can answer that with an unqualified "yes" or "no", but there are various ways of sorting it out.

Interactivity: I don't think there's much debate that Internet is far less isolating than a one-way medium like television. Television (and air conditioning) emptied our front porches and killed our social clubs. So the Internet is, in that sense, a step up.

Quality of Interactions: But "Leave it to Beaver", though mind-numbing, wasn't morally degrading. At first TV, with very few channels, was very careful to assume it was "a guest in the living room", and carried programming suitable for the whole family. Now that contract has been broken, and it's only a matter of time, I suspect, before we see European-style softcore porn on unscrambled television. (And that may not matter anyway, given its easy availability on the 'net.)

Likewise, people are meeting each other online, but is that enhancing human interaction? Anonymous contacts can be freeing, in certain regards, but they also seem to let people behave in ways that would embarrass them severely in real life. Lots of things said on the 'net which I doubt people could say if the person were standing right in front of them.

And, as with TV sweeps weeks, often the crudest and most banal rises to the top.

Impact on Freedom and Privacy: Unlike the the real worlds, "virtual worlds" are owned by someone, and those who own the infrastructure (software, servers, networks, clients) have positively godlike powers. In real life, the details of our social interactions are usually only privy to those directly involved, or those adjacent. You can tell a friend something, and only you two will know.

But the more our social networks become organized around virtual machinery, the more invasive the media becomes, and the more potential for abuse. Google knows every group you join, Yahoo records (perhaps forever) every instant message you send, and "Second Life", if it wanted to, could probably blackmail lots of people.

You've said much of interest here, but I'll only comment (for now) on computers and education. In my observation, the belief that computer literacy at an early age is essential to a child's education is inversely proportional to the believer's own knowledge of computers. The geekiest friend I knew in college, who is now a Microsoft big-wig, deliberately kept his own children far away from computers when they were young. Although my husband and I have done software development on many levels, and spend 'way too many of our waking hours working with computers, our own kids showed little interest until their college years. I suspect that if there is any correlation at all between their lack of early computer literacy and their subsequent academic success (in everything from music to math to languages to engineering), it is a positive one.

What have we gained when high school students spend more time looking online for cool graphics with which to decorate their research papers than they spend on the research itself?

What value is given to diversity of information, informed consent, etc. here? I don't see eAnything totally replacing conventional associations.

Online associations seem to have the capacity to make things like trust and reputation matter again, for better and worse.

I've left sites because of censorship (Dr. Mereck was blatantly censoring posts that disagreed with him and removing posts that complained about the censorship, with no notes justifying the act) and moved to others. Censorship isn't new. But it becomes more obvious, at least, when the site has to remove people that have already posted. Compare that to a news organization which can always claim that they "just didn't have space" to print dissenting views, etc.

But in a virtual world, you can be "disappeared" fairly easily, with none of the "human rights" violations which would trigger calls of protest.

But you can't "really" be disappeared. You aren't dead, and there are always other venues. And in a free society, real friends always have email, personal websites and, God forbid, actual mail.

The blackmail, I'll buy as a danger. But isn't it even easier for traditional media to censor a story if they choose? The John Edwards' affair, for instance? The internet provides diversity of information sources, access to a variety of social niches and so forth.

What have we gained when high school students spend more time looking online for cool graphics with which to decorate their research papers than they spend on the research itself?

I don't know about you, but I can find info in 1/50th the time that it took me pre-internet for a fraction of the cost. That's valuable. I don't want to spend time researching. I want information. When a disagreement comes up between friends and myself, we look it up on the internet and resolve the matter. And I can find critical, dissenting or conflicting opinions in even less. That's valuable to me. I've learned so much from the net, I'm curious whether people dumbed down by it can actually blame the electronic medium as opposed to their own personal proclivities. Kindof like that psychiatrist with the Rorschach test that included all those dirty pictures. ;-)

there's no reason Google couldn't do that (censor) if they wanted to.

If a site is acting as an editor without a stated policy, doesn't that make the more liable for the results that they selectively keep? If someone wanted to punish Google for censorship, I'd think they'd be wise to start with that strategy.

What value is given to ... informed consent, etc. here?

What I mean is that people become less anonymous through things like this and anonymity can be both positive and negative. Chris Rock once said; If you've dated a guy for 3 months and have not met any of his friends, you are NOT his girlfriend.

Something similar applies to blogs and social networks.

The geekiest friend I knew in college, who is now a Microsoft big-wig, deliberately kept his own children far away from computers when they were young.

That's my plan, too. Worked well for my technical career, I don't see why it would work similarly for theirs.

But you can't "really" be disappeared. You aren't dead, and there are always other venues. And in a free society, real friends always have email, personal websites and, God forbid, actual mail.

Actual mail? I've heard of that... hmmm...

Oh yes! That stuff I throw out a couple of times a month. With all the glossy advertisements. It has another purpose? Wonders never cease! ;-)

Yes, I agree entirely at the moment. But my discussion on this topic pertained to what will happen when there is yet more integration. The key there is "in a free society."

Right now, let's say Google wanted to block someone. The person might be running Gmail as their e-mail address, storing their documents in Google's online apps, and running their blog on blogspot. That's a lot of territory.

The threat in the future doesn't come from companies acting alone -- competition should keep that at bay, at least partially -- but from integration between governmental entities and corporations. Again, Google's cooperation with the Communist Chinese is a perfect example. Look also at Canada's attempt to coerce McClain's.

And of course, even if an individual can still send out e-mail, troubling ideas can be blocked -- e.g. downrank or close their website, prevent them from sending mail to too many people, etc.

If a site is acting as an editor without a stated policy, doesn't that make the more liable for the results that they selectively keep?

Liable in what sense? It's not illegal to suppress information you don't like (see SursumCorda's comments) on your website. And thankfully holding people responsible for the comments on their site appears to be mainly a Canadian thing, for the moment at least.

Here's one link to an Israeli case (sorry I don't have time right now to gather more.) Taken into consideration in the ruling against the defendant are the fact that she had technical knowledge, had the technical capacity to edit posts, and regularly did so. Such youtube editing may therefore increase the company's exposure to liability.

From the UK

With regard to the requirement of 'actual knowledge', the court in a 2006 case, Bunt v Tilley and others [2006] EWHC 407, held that: "an ISP which performs no more than a passive role in facilitating postings on the internet cannot be deemed to be a publisher at common law." Therefore, FE and HE institutions may rely on this case to argue that they are not liable if they do nothing more than facilitate publishing in the same way that an ISP would .

.... In the words of the court: "if a person knowingly permits another to communicate information which is defamatory, when there would be an opportunity to prevent the publication, there would seem to be no reason in principle why liability should not accrue."