what's so wrong with Facebook?

[primevere]

Today i was online at school and was deciding to check out my facebook account to see what was new with people in my network. Obviously some of the administrators at my high school have a problem with this website, once i typed in the URL the site was blocked. I am putting the question out there, what is soo bad about this site that can lead a school to blocking it? and should schools restrict usage of a site that can have similar benefits as email?

[powerfulcheese04]

It's a time waster.

At least, that's why my high school blocked sites. We couldn't check any e-mail sites, either.

Also, schools seem to think facebook is "dangerous."

[primevere]

I understand if schools want to protect their students from the outside world but blocking a communication site such as facebook or even email is stupid.

[powerfulcheese04]

It's so that during school time you are focusing on school.

You aren't wasting their computer resources to do social stuff.

[anonshadow]

and should schools restrict usage of a site that can have similar benefits as email?

No. Honestly, schools shouldn't block sites at all, excluding obvious exceptions like porn. If you've got a free period and no work to do, there's no reason why you shouldn't have a tiny bit of recreational time.

The idea of blocking email is ridiculous. In high school, that's how my friends and I worked on papers in school; we'd write some, and then when the period ended, we'd just copy and paste it into an email and email it to ourselves. So not only is it restricting down time, it could actually hurt the student.

[Jebus]

Perhaps the schools don't have enough computers to accomodate both people who can't wait long enough to get home to check facebook AND those who need to actually do work. ::shrugs::

[powerfulcheese04]

and should schools restrict usage of a site that can have similar benefits as email?

No. Honestly, schools shouldn't block sites at all, excluding obvious exceptions like porn. If you've got a free period and no work to do, there's no reason why you shouldn't have a tiny bit of recreational time.

The idea of blocking email is ridiculous. In high school, that's how my friends and I worked on papers in school; we'd write some, and then when the period ended, we'd just copy and paste it into an email and email it to ourselves. So not only is it restricting down time, it could actually hurt the student.

Mine didn't block the school e-mail accounts. Which you could only access at school. So, the sending home thing still worked. But it wasn't a use of school resources "for non school purposes."

I can see where public schools would need to do that. I don't neccisarily agree with it, but I can see where they're coming from.

I have a computer at home, I can wait to check facebook 'til I get there. But someone else might not have a computer and thus can't wait to type their paper 'til they get home.

[Yebra]

Really the problem goes away if they implement it a little better, most filter packages will let them specific certain times and computers that restrictions can be a little more lax on.

[Jayelle]

There was an issue in my city where a teacher was "slandered" on facebook (in reality, I think it was blown way out of proportion by the local media). That could be a reason schools block it.

[Ithilien]

I don't really understand facebook's allure but I can understand why the school would block it. Parents would too, if they could. With all the arguments of wasting time meant for education and self-betterment and cyber-bullying and slander, they just have to block it.

Funny thing is, someone saved a link to facebook (that gets past the block) on the student drive. Now, everyone is facebooking all over the place!

[peterlocke123]

yay for proxy avoidance!

[daPyr0x]

and should schools restrict usage of a site that can have similar benefits as email?

No. Honestly, schools shouldn't block sites at all, excluding obvious exceptions like porn. If you've got a free period and no work to do, there's no reason why you shouldn't have a tiny bit of recreational time.

The idea of blocking email is ridiculous. In high school, that's how my friends and I worked on papers in school; we'd write some, and then when the period ended, we'd just copy and paste it into an email and email it to ourselves. So not only is it restricting down time, it could actually hurt the student.

Gimme a break. You can get a 16mb thumb drive for pennies nowadays. If you're typing in notepad (and you might as well be if you're going to copy and paste into an email like that) you'd need to write a couple hundred pages before you ran out of space, AND you wouldn't need internet access at home to bring it home. That's a piss poor excuse to say that the lack of e-mail access is going to hurt the student.

For what it's worth, all those poor students that used to have to haul floppy disks around - or worse yet, write by hand.... I pity how hurt their performance might have been.

You're very right, though; that there's no reason students shouldn't have recreational time. And the idea of using the schools resources (which cost money, by the way) for your own recreational time isn't exactly far fetched. The problem is, however, that often times the school does not have enough resources available to support those students who are using them for educational purposes alongside those who wish to use them for recreation. Being that your school is a place of learning, educational pursuits using those resources take priority. An empty library with a computer that you wish to use for facebook is no big deal; but if your school is anything like mine was, there was rarely an empty computer available on your lunch break. The most frustrating part was that half of them were being used to play flash games or something of the sort while you're looking to do some additional research for your history final that's due tomorrow...

There isn't any reason to prevent the usage of the schools' resources for the recreation of it's students on their down time. The problem is that there isn't an efficient means of prioritizing those resources such that those who wish to use them for educational reasons have "first dibs," as it were, above those who are just looking to kill time.

You can say "well they could make a sign up procedure, where those looking to kill time sign in on one sheet and those looking to use them for school use another, and when they're full they start kicking off the time killers." The problem there, however, is that students are not the most honest people in the world, and you would very quickly see people sign up as using for education and getting on sites like facebook. Moreover, they're typically not too keen on being approached by the librarian and told they need to butt out for somebody else who takes priority.

You can recreate at home. Use your free time at school to go play frisbee outside with your friends and stop wasting your life away in front of a computer.

...he says as he types on his keyboard well after 5am because he can't sleep...

[anonshadow]

See, and if there are limited resources, I can understand blocking entertainment sites. At my first high school, if someone needed to use a computer or one of the laptops for school stuff and went around the library asking if anyone using one didn't need it for school, they would generally end up with a computer, unless it was finals crunch.

It still seems off to block email, because it can be used for a lot of valid, school-related purposes. College information, for example. Sign up on one of those silly college search sites, and some email you your password and/or a confirmation link. How are you going to access it if you can't get into your email?

It's also worth pointing out that, thank you, in the city? Most schools don't have places where you can "go and play frisbee."

[daPyr0x]

You can recreate at home. Use your free time at school to go play frisbee outside with CDs through the neighborhood windows

For what it's worth though, I've gone to "inner city" schools and they have all had some sort of grounds outside of just the building.

[neo-dragon]

If you think banning facebook for students is silly, what about government employees? http://www.thestar.com/News/article/210014

[Rei]

Honestly, if you're at work, why are you watching youtube and doing whatever it is folks do at facebook? There should just be a solid block put on to all major sites like that.

[anonshadow]

You can recreate at home. Use your free time at school to go play frisbee outside with CDs through the neighborhood windows

For what it's worth though, I've gone to "inner city" schools and they have all had some sort of grounds outside of just the building.

Well, CDs through neighborhood windows is a bit more reasonable.

As far as grounds go, it's very hit and miss.



As far as government employees, etc, go--

When you're being paid to work, you need to work.

[neo-dragon]

As far as government employees, etc, go--

When you're being paid to work, you need to work.

Yeah, but I think it's funny that they apparently can't be trusted to refrain on their own any more than teenagers can be.

[Dr. Mobius]

Considering the number of people who access this Pweb from work/school it's really not surprising at all.

[zeroguy]

Clearly we're just addicts. That's a special case.

[Jayelle]

As far as government employees, etc, go--

When you're being paid to work, you need to work.

Yeah, you try and sit at a checkout desk for an hour with nothing but a computer in front of you and no patrons checking out books. I have no choice but to go online. There's little else to do!

[Sparrowhawk]

I agree on that. I (used to) work third shift in an office; the only person in the building with nothing to do but wait for the off chance someone might call and do data-entry/whatnot. Without the internet, I couldn't have stayed awake/interested enough to do my job.

Edit: maybe that's why the position was laid off, eh? I shoulda saw that coming.