Learning 2.0: Why Join a Social Network?

For our first lesson this week in our Learning 2.0 program at my library, we watched the following video on YouTube:



I have been on Facebook for a little bit now and how been a lurker -- looking at open profiles but never setting up a profile myself -- on MySpace. It creeps me out a bit to see all those people from my high school and think they could find me ; ) Of course, almost none of them have Facebook profiles. Interesting.... I have also set up a profile with LinkedIn but have never really done anything with it. My husband, on the other hand, has quite the network on LinkedIn.

I especially appreciate the simplicity of the video. It's silly, but I never really thought about WHY I was joining Facebook or why my husband is on LinkedIn, but the above video explains it entirely and simply. We join to extend those personal networks and to make it easier to contact friends of friends. We join for personal reasons -- to find love, to find work, to share photos and information about our lives with those we trust. We join for professional reasons -- to see what others are doing, to have great contacts, to reach out to students in our libraries.