Читать книгу Successes and Setbacks of Social Media - Группа авторов - Страница 21

We arrived on campus for our first fall residency session. During our Friday evening dinner break, a college representative asked us all to subscribe to the program’s Facebook page. Of course, we all had questions (and even some concerns) about the content that some might share. This sparked a conversation among the cohort of the possibility of using Facebook to communicate outside of our college issued email accounts. Within minutes, a cohort member had created the private group on Facebook and sent out invitations. For full transparency, I was a bit skeptical. To this point, I had only used Facebook to share photos and as an event search engine. It was unclear to me how this private group would allow us to support one another. Initially, we only used the page to share generic information and then, one day, that all changed. Someone shared the news of a work transition. Immediately, we all began to share concern, words of encouragement, and most importantly new opportunities as well as resources to help manage this transition. Within two weeks, the cohort member had several promising leads and thanked everyone for helping. Wow! This private group on Facebook instantaneously became the conduit to provide information, an opportunity to network, and a source of emotional support. For the remaining years of our program, our private Facebook group became our safe place to share unfiltered complaints, concerns, encouragement, feelings, and moods without judgement. This virtual space provided a dwelling for us to support each other and hold each other accountable. It helped to make it feel that our cohort was more than just faces seen one weekend a month and a full week once a year. We were accountability partners and cheerleaders, who knew firsthand the challenges we all were experiencing.