The Khan Academy is an excellent online resource that many luminaries, including Bill Gates, have endorsed as either an educational supplement (which was its initial purpose) or a harbinger of a profoundly new way of “doing” education.

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Super logoff

Mikalah uses Facebook but when she goes to log out, she deactivates her Facebook account. She knows that this doesn’t delete the account – that’s the point. She knows that when she logs back in, she’ll be able to reactivate the account and have all of her friend connections back. But when she’s not logged in, no one can post messages on her wall or send her messages privately or browse her content. But when she’s logged in, they can do all of that. And she can delete anything that she doesn’t like. Michael Ducker calls this practice “super-logoff” when he noticed a group of gay male adults doing the exact same thing.

Mikalah is not trying to get rid of her data or piss of her friends. And she’s not. What she’s trying to do is minimize risk when she’s not present to actually address it. For the longest time, scholars have talked about online profiles as digital bodies that are left behind to do work while the agent themselves is absent. In many ways, deactivation is a way of not letting the digital body stick around when the person is not present. This is a great risk reduction strategy if you’re worried about people who might look and misinterpret. Or people who might post something that would get you into trouble. Mikalah’s been there and isn’t looking to get into any more trouble. But she wants to be a part of Facebook when it makes sense and not risk the possibility that people will be snooping when she’s not around. It’s a lot easier to deactivate every day than it is to change your privacy settings every day. More importantly, through deactivation, you’re not searchable when you’re not around. You really are invisible except when you’re there. And when you’re there, your friends know it, which is great. What Mikalah does gives her the ability to let Facebook be useful to her when she’s present but not live on when she’s not.

Wall scrubbing

Shamika doesn’t deactivate her Facebook profile but she does delete every wall message, status update, and Like shortly after it’s posted. She’ll post a status update and leave it there until she’s ready to post the next one or until she’s done with it. Then she’ll delete it from her profile. When she’s done reading a friend’s comment on her page, she’ll delete it. She’ll leave a Like up for a few days for her friends to see and then delete it. When I asked her why she was deleting this content, she looked at me incredulously and told me “too much drama.” Pushing further, she talked about how people were nosy and it was too easy to get into trouble for the things you wrote a while back that you couldn’t even remember posting let alone remember what it was all about. It was better to keep everything clean and in the moment. If it’s relevant now, it belongs on Facebook, but the old stuff is no longer relevant so it doesn’t belong on Facebook. Her narrative has nothing to do with adults or with Facebook as a data retention agent. She’s concerned about how her postings will get her into unexpected trouble with her peers in an environment where saying the wrong thing always results in a fight. She’s trying to stay out of fights because fights mean suspensions and she’s had enough of those. So for her, it’s one of many avoidance strategies. The less she has out there for a jealous peer to misinterpret, the better.

I asked Shamika why she bothered with Facebook in the first place, given that she sent over 1200 text messages a day. Once again, she looked at me incredulously, pointing out that there’s no way that she’d give just anyone her cell phone number. Texting was for close friends that respected her while Facebook was necessary to be a part of her school social life. And besides, she liked being able to touch base with people from her former schools or reach out to someone from school that she didn’t know well. Facebook is a lighter touch communication structure and that’s really important to her. But it doesn’t need to be persistent to be useful.

Two very excellent ideas for reducing your risk online. Both do it through minimizing the available attack surface. One does it proactively (denying others the ability to post) while the other does it retroactively (thwarting historical attacks). Both approaches have merit and could be very useful if you are concerned with how your digital presence might be used or misused in your absence.

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Many of you are wondering what the big deal is with blogs. Well here is a short video on blogs and why they are important/useful:

What’s so great about blogs?

Aside from being able to access specialized information put out on a regular basis, there is one other reason I enjoy reading blogs and consider them to be an essential element in our modern forms of communication.

Blogs help you connect with people.

You learn a lot about someone’s character, thoughts, and passions if you follow what they say on their blog. The trouble is that since blogs are generally authored by one person on individual website it can become time consuming and cumbersome to visit each blog you’re interested in to check for and read any new posts.

How can I keep up with blogs?

The easiest tool I’ve found to help bring a variety of different blogs together into one place is by utilizing the RSS feed offered by most blogs.

Google Reader is a web-based RSS reader which requires a Google account and a little bit of setup, but once you get it going its pretty much automated and will allow you to check a number of blogs without having to spend time visiting each and every website to get updates.

Here is a short video to help you get started with Google Reader:

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