Assignment 5

Last year my mom joined Facebook and explained that she just wanted to see if any of her college friends had a Facebook. She had little luck finding anyone, and she didn’t know what else to do (or how to do anything) so she hasn’t used it since. This is why many people probably would need a “how to,” because “if people have a poor or inappropriate understanding of the unique and different features of a new technology they may resist using it” (Orlikowski 364).

An explanation would have to include networking purposes, the fact that you can keep in touch with people all over the world, easier than ever before. Keeping in touch doesn’t just mean email anymore, you can share pictures, invite people to events, chat, post messages, and write notes. You can see pictures of your new niece or your cousins wedding, you can be notified of a local reunion, see where your old roommate is now living and working. The only resources that you need (besides internet access and an email address) are your time, and the benefits of staying in contact with people to such an extent are surely great.

These individuals would “try to understand it in terms of their existing technological frames…” (Orlikowski 364) and assuming basic web/email competence, they should have no trouble actually registering for a Facebook since the simple forms are common in many websites. The layout of the profiles has the tab format, so this may be familiar and in an existing frame of reference from using other sites. However, for the rest of the site, it would be useful to have very clear, step by step, instructions about how to do things. For example, if you want to add an album, do 1,2 and 3.. The training would need to include all of the features that 40-60s would likely use in the context of networking. This means searching, photos, wall posts, notes, chat, and messaging, but training could also include explanations of what else if offered on Facebook so that they are aware of the other features. In training, we would help the users identify ways in which Facebook features are similar to sites they already use, as to build on/augment their existing frame of reference. This way they can more easily overcome the frames they have of Facebook being an unsafe, confusing, silly profile site for the younger generation. A final lesson in training would be privacy settings, since we would need to train for what the user would want.

It would be hard to measure a definite return at first as it might be a sort of “immeasurable thing” (Grudin 327). However, after using Facebook for some time, the users would see returns in the form of maintaining relationships, useful knowledge about how to communicate, and fun/happiness in being connected.