Student athletes at universities around the U.S. will think twice before posting questionable material to their Facebook and MySpace accounts. Many universities are monitoring their athletes’ use of social networking sites.

At the University of Iowa, for instance, a monitoring program goes into effect Friday. Student leaders will monitor the profiles for members of their team. Other schools allow administrators or coaches to monitor sites.

Why the need to monitor? Because students are students; some of them post pictures of themselves and their teammates drinking, they put down their coaches and/or programs, and they gossip about their teammates.

Social networking is huge among the college-age crowd, but some students haven’t learned to put appropriate boundaries around what they post online. Failing to realize the long-term ramifications of posting potentially damaging material to a public forum, they publish anything and everything.

To lessen the possibility of students living to regret a momentary lapse in judgment, university administrators are stepping in, taking a more active role in monitoring content that could damage not only the students, but the university’s image (and thus recruiting, and thus, a winning season, and thus, more cash donations from happy alumni…you get the picture).

Some students cry “CENSORSHIP” at these monitoring policies. I’m a former journalism instructor and a proponent of freedom of the press, but I don’t view these monitoring policies as censorship. Rather, I agree with North Carolina athletics director Dick Baddour, who says:

“What people do now affects their lives forever, and what they do affects us, so we want to make sure that’s done in the right way.”

Social networking policies protect athletes from themselves.

What do you think, readers?

Source:
“Schools make rules for social networking,” by Kyle Oppenhuizen, USA TODAY, July 28, 2008

Tags: HeBlogsSheBlogs.com, social network monitoring at universities, Social Networking, student athletes, USA TODAY

Do you have a child aged 0-5? If so, does the apple of your eye have his or her own social networking Web page?

No? Well, you’d better get right on it before your infant or toddler labels you hopelessly old-fashioned and un-cool.

Yes, it’s true. TotSpot debuts today. Your young ’un can have her own free page, where she can post photos and videos of her first tooth, first step, and first temper tantrum. She can highlight milestones such as “fully potty trained” and “smeared face with chocolate frosting on third birthday.”

And, of course, your youngster can invite other babies to be her “friend.” And all her “friends” will receive an e-mail whenever she posts new content (your baby does have an e-mail address, right?)

Like me, you’re probably wondering: But what about security? Won’t this site be a haven for predators? Adam Katz, co-founder of the site, says that only invited family and friends can view your page.

But what if your “friends” aren’t really friends at all? And what if no one wants to be your “friend”? Won’t that irrevocably damage your child’s self-esteem?

I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

If you yearn to introduce your child to the world of social networking now, before he’s six years old and the whole social networking thing becomes old hat, you’d better plop that baby on your lap right this second, click over to TotSpot and help him create his very own page.

Let us know how it goes. Really. We want to hear what you (and your child) like/don’t like about the concept.

Also in this series:

• Doggone Bloggy: Glenn Close Starts ‘Lively Licks’ Blog

• Working Mother magazine builds business via blogs

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Tags: HeBlogsSheBlogs.com, Social Networking, TotSpot.com