Teaching about the Impacts of Social Networks: An End of Life Perspective

Abstract

As the use of various social networking technologies increase, so does the importance of understanding the long term implications for users in the context of end of life. Users post many digital artifacts online for many reasons, such as for storage, construction of their digital identity, communication, etc. Often these posts and uploads inadvertently build the digital legacy of the user. In this paper, we discuss the impacts of social networking and the construction of an online identity from an end of life perspective. The authors discuss the importance of education as an essential element for preparation and understanding of this topic. A survey of college social network users is also reported along with a discussion on their feedback.