This paper examines the rise of Facebook as the world's dominant social networking platform and explores its implications for K–12 education and school counseling. Drawing on a review of relevant literature, the paper provides background on Facebook's rapid growth, discusses current and future trends in its educational use — including the development of school-safe alternatives such as Saywire — and analyzes why the platform's proliferation makes it a pressing concern for school counselors. Topics addressed include cyberbullying, online predator risks, privacy issues related to the "Friend" designation, and opportunities to leverage social networking for instructional purposes. The paper concludes that school counselors must develop a thorough understanding of Facebook in order to guide students, support teachers, and promote responsible digital citizenship.
The paper demonstrates effective literature synthesis: rather than summarizing each source in isolation, it weaves multiple scholarly voices together to build a coherent argument about why school counselors need to engage seriously with social networking. The progression from background, to trends, to counselor-specific implications shows purposeful source integration in service of a practical thesis.
The paper opens with a brief introduction establishing Facebook's cultural prominence and the paper's purpose. It then moves through three substantive sections: a background overview of Facebook's growth and user demographics; an analysis of current and future educational trends, including school-safe alternatives; and an extended discussion of why the platform is a hot-button issue for school counselors, covering cyberbullying, predator risks, and the nuanced ethics of the "Friend" designation. A summary conclusion synthesizes the key findings and reaffirms the counselor's central role.
In 2008, Facebook outdistanced the previously more popular MySpace in terms of number of users to become the most widely used social network in the world. Although the top management of Facebook was facing a lawsuit for proprietary infringement at the time, the site was already generating impressive revenues. In fact, one of the founders of Facebook announced intentions to donate $100 million to the struggling Newark, New Jersey school district — a philanthropic gesture comparable in spirit to efforts by major educational foundations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Clearly, Facebook was having a major influence on the manner in which young people socialize and interact, and all signs indicated that this influence would continue to grow. It is therefore important for teachers, administrators, and school counselors to understand how social networking sites in general — and Facebook in particular, given its prominence — are being used by young people. In an effort to determine what the impact of this growing influence will be within schools, this paper reviews the relevant literature to develop an overview and background for Facebook, examines current and future trends with respect to its implications for schools, and analyzes why this is a "hot topic" for school counselors. A summary of the research and important findings is presented in the conclusion.
The official Facebook factsheet reports that in less than a decade, Facebook emerged to become one of the most important resources in the world for hundreds of millions of young users. As stated in the factsheet, "Founded in February 2004, Facebook is a social utility that helps people communicate more efficiently with their friends, family and coworkers. The company develops technologies that facilitate the sharing of information through the social graph, the digital mapping of people's real-world social connections" (About Facebook, 2010, para. 1). Not surprisingly, this "digital mapping" was readily embraced by the so-called "digital natives" of the Millennial generation.
According to Bauman and Tatum (2009), "Social networking sites (SNS) such as Facebook and MySpace are now part of the social fabric of the lives of American teens and young adults. Although such sites only emerged in the past few years, they were rapidly embraced by large segments of the population" (p. 1). Likewise, Bowers-Campbell cites the results of a survey of college students and reports that "96% of students with online access reported using social networking technologies, and those online generally spent 9 hours per week chatting, text messaging, blogging, and visiting online communities" (2008, p. 74). One of the more interesting findings from that survey concerned what young people are actually doing in these social networking environments: "Perhaps even more surprising, the study found that 60% of social network users talked about schoolwork while online" (Bowers-Campbell, 2008, p. 74). The dominance of Facebook among competing platforms was also made clear: "Among college students with online access, Facebook reigns supreme across social networking sites reporting pervasive use among adolescents" (Bowers-Campbell, 2008, p. 75).
Facebook already had more than half a billion users who had visited the site within the past month alone (About Facebook, 2010), and its popularity showed no signs of slowing. Demski (2009) notes that "Web 2.0 applications like online communities, blogs, and wikis should not be thought of as just a passing fad or idle socializing, but as an activity that has embedded itself into the way work gets done" (p. 24). Significant changes in traditional socialization practices were also observable as more young people gathered in virtual communities to interact. As Conner (2009) points out, "Facebook is far more than a platform from which to express one's individuality. It also brings together people who have either never met or would not normally meet in daily circumstances" (p. 12).
The rapid growth that made Facebook the medium of choice for hundreds of millions of users did not go unnoticed by the educational community. Because social networking sites were becoming increasingly important in the business world, Demski emphasized the need for schools to help educate students in how these resources can be used to their best effect. According to Demski, "For schools to keep pace with the trends being established in the world at large, it is imperative they recognize the central role that social networking tools have grown to occupy in how employers do business, and make room for them in students' education" (2009, p. 25).
In response to this need, a so-called "Internal Facebook" was created for K–12 students at Saywire, described by Demski as "an online social networking and learning site designed specifically for in-house use by schools and students. Saywire wants to create a safe environment where constructive Web 2.0 skills can be developed while students are young, so they grow up to be smart, civil online citizens. Since its launch last October, the site has registered more than 160,000 students and teachers across the country" (p. 25). In sharp contrast to the official Facebook platform, this education-only alternative provided a number of protections for its users, including:
1. Membership restricted to students and faculty listed on the roster exported by the school into the system;
2. No anonymity; the user name must be the same as the member's real name;
3. Communication limited to users within the school, district, or Saywire global network, depending upon the school's preference;
4. Parental consent mandatory for students under 13 years old and parental monitoring of the student's profile; and
5. Industry standards for data encryption (Demski, 2009, p. 25).
While the goals of Saywire and similar alternatives are laudable, and the use of these resources can help familiarize educators with how social networking sites operate, they fail to provide the empirical observations needed to formulate informed views about how these sites are used in real-world settings. To its credit, Facebook emphasized the need for mutual respect, appropriate language, and ethical conduct by all users in its terms of service, and the site issued automatic warnings when users were believed to be engaging in unethical practices (pers. obs.). Conner (2009) reports that "Facebook's two-color layout echoes the company's insistence on the linear progress of socialization, which has proved a subtle guide for users to be ethical with one another" (p. 12). The Facebook factsheet similarly states that "Facebook has worked to provide a safe and trusted environment by, for example, requiring that people use their real names. Facebook also works with online safety experts around the world and has established a global Safety Advisory Board that it consults with on safety issues" (2010, para. 4).
Facebook's management also took steps to give back to the community by creating an educational foundation. Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show on September 24, 2010 to announce a donation of $100 million intended to help improve the struggling public school system in Newark, New Jersey (Sahba, 2010). The mayor of Newark, Cory Booker, and the governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, also appeared on the program for the announcement (Sahba, 2010).
The donation was reportedly just the first in a series from the foundation established by Zuckerberg. While other social networking sites struggled to translate large amounts of online traffic into profits, Facebook succeeded in a major way. According to Sahba, "With an estimated net worth of $6.9 billion, Zuckerberg ranked 35th on this year's Forbes 400 list of richest Americans — up from 158th last year. At 26, he and Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz are the youngest billionaires on the list" (2010, para. 2). This rapid growth and economic success clearly indicated that Facebook was doing something right in attracting young users and in monetizing that audience, but critics noted some downsides to this growing popularity that school counselors also needed to recognize.
The research was consistent in showing that Facebook has become the online social network of choice for hundreds of millions of users, with many of them being in the K–12 age range. Rather than adopting an attitude of indifference toward social media, school counselors today need to know how young people are using social networking sites so that they will be prepared to provide the guidance these young learners need to use these sites appropriately. School counselors also need to understand Facebook well enough to actively help their educational colleagues leverage these resources to their maximum advantage while avoiding the potential for misuse by students.
The research also showed that the number of Facebook users continues to grow every day, and some of the revenues generated by this enormous popularity are being directed at educational initiatives. Projecting these trends into the future, it is reasonable to conclude that more young people will be using Facebook than ever in the years to come, and the need for understanding how these social networking sites affect students and teachers alike will assume even greater importance as a result.
About Facebook. (2010). Facebook Factsheet. Retrieved from
Bauman, S. & Tatum, T. (2009). Web sites for young children: Gateway to online social networking? Professional School Counseling, 13(1), 1–2.
Bowers-Campbell, J. (2008). Cyber 'pokes': Motivational antidote for developmental college readers. Journal of College Reading and Learning, 39(1), 74–75.
Choate, L. & Curry, J. R. (2009). Addressing the sexualization of girls through comprehensive programs, advocacy, and systemic change: Implications for professional school counselors. Professional School Counseling, 12(3), 213–214.
Conner, J. (2009). Facebook, the image and the virtual cedar bar. Afterimage, 37(2), 11–12.
Demski, J. (2009). Facebook training wheels: A secured social networking site allows schools to incorporate the technology into academics while preparing students for the perils of online communities. The Journal, 36(4), 24–25.
Feinberg, L. (2008, Summer). Facebook: Beyond Friends. Our Schools, Our Selves, 17(4), 75–76.
Sahba, A. (2010, September 24). Facebook founder to announce $100M donation. CNN International. Retrieved from http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/social.media/09/24/facebook.donation/?hpt=Sbin.
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