ASU develops new online social networking program

Incoming college students are so plugged in to online social networks that ASU is getting in on the act with two new programs.

"Saying young people have become reliant on social media is kind of like saying young people have become reliant on communicating with peers, being inquisitive, forming communities and experimenting," says Menachem Wecker, a founder of the Association of Social Media & Higher Education.

Arizona State has developed a new private, closed social networking site for students called Devil2Devil. The network is geared toward incoming freshmen to use as a way to connect with their peers, but any student enrolled at ASU can participate in the program.

David Burge, who works in the office of undergraduate admissions and helps to maintain the Devil2Devil community, says students are very connected to social media these days, and ASU wanted to essentially get a piece of that pie.

"They're dialed into Facebook, and they're having other social networking experiences, so we wanted to have those same experiences, but protected," Burge says. "We wanted a little space on the internet where students can connect with other students considering Arizona State, and communicate about the relevant topics about going to school here."

Burge says that since this is a community made up strictly of students, users help to police and maintain it just as he does.

"People need to realize that this is a form of public space. This is no different than standing in a cafeteria with a large group of people," he says. "That's what's great about social networks that have developed; the community polices itself. We have not had an incidence so far where we have had to intervene on the network.

"When people go and post incorrect information, like, ‘Tuition is x amount of dollars,' there are those in the community who will correct that information, and say, ‘It's really y amount.'"

Whether social networking acts as a replacement for traditional, face-to-face communication is still a point of debate in academia.

"The old man in me says, ‘Hey, wouldn't it be better if we were able to communicate with one another over coffee, or that we would have these types of face-to-face interactions?'" Burge says. "But the flip-side, the man in me that wishes he was still young says, ‘Isn't it amazing that we can have a student from Dobson High School connect with a student from Highland Park High School in Chicago, Illinois, and develop that relationship?'"

"That being said, there are stories already emerging of students who are making connections where it turns out they have been very close to each other, in terms of physical space, but just never had the cause or reason to connect with each other until now."

Sarah Krznarich, the assistant director of student engagement for ASU Online, a program that works with people who have unfinished degrees, references a phenomenon called "fomo," first written about by Caterina Fake, one of the founders of Flickr, as a possible reason why students are soengaged in social media.

"It stands for ‘fear of missing out,' and it's how, in one moment you could be reading a book or watching television and be completely content, but if you log on to Facebook and see some kind of party going on, or some kind of internet meme that everyone was talking about that you weren't aware of, it completely changes your behavior," Krznarich says. "And that can be a dangerous thing because then you're letting other people dictate your social life and I think that's kind of dangerous."

Krznarich, whose job is to work on social media connections and web content for ASU Online, notes another social media tool ASU is working on that is geared to helping students: the Spark app.

Right now, the app is in beta testing stages, Krznarich says, but ultimately will become something like the foursquare of ASU. It's also a private, ASU-only community where students can "check-in" at locations, and let their friends know where they are and what they're doing. The app is scheduled for a hard launch in August, and was developed by a company called DoubleDutch.

Lawrence Coburn, the CEO of DoubleDutch, says the company noticed a sort of "nostalgia" among students for the old Faceook.

"They want the days when Facebook was a university-only network," he says. "Now, everybody's on Facebook, and in many ways, the community has grown too big."