No ratings yet.

This post is about an unexpected pregnancy of a teenage girl in Oklahoma. The father wants to get custody of the child, so he can take care of his kid. However, the mother has already put the child up for adoption. The dispute is between the biological father and the adoptive parents. What does this has to do with social media? Let me explain.

The mother of the, now 2 year old, child has sent a Facebook message to the biological father to tell him she was pregnant. The father claims to have never read that message during the pregnancy, but found out after the child was born. When he found out he had a kid he immediately took action, since he wanted to take care of it, and financially support it. His parental rights were terminated after a couple of months after the delivery.

Oklahoma law states that “The natural father of a child, born out of wedlock has to be notified of the existence of the child”. This way the father has the opportunity to take responsibility, and take care of his child.

Technically, the mother has notified the father, using Facebook. Therefore, lower courts terminated the parental rights of the father. The highest court has now ruled that a single Facebook message is not enough:

“Instead of contacting Father directly, Mother left him a message on Facebook, which is an unreliable method of communication if the accountholder does not check it regularly or have it configured in such a way as to provide notification of unread messages by some other means. This Court is unwilling to declare notice via Facebook alone sufficient to meet the requirements of the due process clauses of the United States and Oklahoma Constitutions because it is not reasonably certain to inform those affected”

There are several comments on this ruling. Some claim that Facebook is just as reliable as a written letter, since a letter can also be left unopened and therefore not been read.

What is your opinion about this situation? Do you think that a Facebook message is enough to tell someone he is the father of a child?

References:

Wall Street Journal, http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/10/17/court-facebook-not-a-valid-way-for-mom-to-tell-dad-shes-pregnant/?mod=WSJBlog

Nu.nl, http://www.nu.nl/internet/3906595/facebook-bericht-niet-geldig-als-mededeling-zwangerschap-vader.html

No ratings yet.

The last couple of years have showed the power of social media, not only for individual use, but it’s becoming clear that social media can be a vital part within firms. This post consists of three parts. First of all I’ll discuss three articles concerning social network science. Secondly I’ll talk about the new advertisement platform of Facebook, called Atlas. Last of all I’ll discuss the use of Facebook and Twitter for companies, concerning advertisement and customer support.

The first article being discussed is Network analysis in the social sciences, by Borgatti. This article focuses on the beginning of social network sciences, note that it doesn’t specifically talks about online social networks. The main findings of this article is that social networks have been subject to a lot of change over time. In 1932, the researcher Moreno used what he called sociometry, to explain social networks. This was a mix of social- and natural sciences. Later on the network sciences were respectively viewed through algebra, anthropology and sociology. In the 1980s it became an established scientific field.

The second article is Social network sites: Definition, History and Scholarships, by Boyd. This article gives us a definition of online social networks:

Web-based services that allow individuals to construct a public profile within a bounded system, articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system (the nature of these connection may very site by site) (Boyd et all, 2007).

The third article, Business network-based value creation in electronic commerce, by Kaufmann. This article formulates three conditions for a stable business network, being network formation, network demand and network stability. By using data from a couple of cases within the travel hospitality industry, these conditions are confirmed.

The second part of this post is about Atlas, a new way to advertise on Facebook. Atlas makes companies able to follow potential customers on different devices. This way, a firm can see that an individual has seen a laptop advertisement, and later on bought that laptop on his PC. This has been the cause for a lot of privacy concerns, however Facebook states that the identity of the users remain hidden. Atlas could be a tool to increase revenues, since it’s able to target more specific groups, and track the behaviour of those groups. This could result in more clicks on advertisement.

Last of all I’ll discuss Twitter and Facebook, concerning advertisements and customer support. I’ve found that Facebook is very useful for advertisements, since it’s able to target specific groups. It also shows companies statistic data about the advertisements. Twitter on the other hand is most helpful for customer support, since it consists of small direct messages, and users are able to search for specific hash tags to find a solution to their problems.

No ratings yet.

Last week I read an article about the growing number of burn-outs. Interesting fact about this phenomenon was the amount of burn-outs under younger adults, even teenagers. Burn-outs are common under employees, 50 years or older of age. Last year 1 out of 7 employees in the Netherlands experienced one or more symptoms of a burn-out.

The question is, what causes these burn-outs, and why do more and more younger people experience a burn-out?

This brings us to the subject of our Minor; Social Media. Psychologists state that people experience some sort of pressure to check their Social Media. They are somewhat addicted to this relatively new, and enormous, stream of information. Not only to keep up with their friends, but the need to check your e-mail for work also has a major impact on stresslevels.

The constant need to be online, for instance to skype with business relations, leads to exhaustion. Peer pressure also plays an important role as a cause for a burn-out, especially under teenagers. If teenagers, for instance, read a statusupdate on facebook about a party, and all of their friends are going to that event, they feel the need to also attend this party. If this goes on for a couple of months, in combination with their education and other obligatons, they will eventually be more vulnerable to a burn-out.

How can we stop this trend? Some companies (Volkswagen, Boston consulting Group) have already reacted to this phenomenon by introducing ‘offline days’, as a solution to the ‘non-stop work weeks’. Health organisations also give advice on how to avoid a burnout:

• Check your e-mail on fixed times during the day
• Seek help if you feel pressured to be online 24/7
• Turn your cellphone off during diner (so no Instagram photo’s)

As we’re young adults, we’re subject to these ‘social media burnouts’. So my question to you is as follows:

Do you experience pressure to be online 24/7? For work or your peer group. And how would you counteract exhaustion, caused by Social Media?

References

http://www.intermediair.nl/carriere/werk-en-leven/werk-prive-balans/voorkom-stress-en-burn-out-door-je-smartphone

http://www.bnr.nl/nieuws/153318-1303/druk-social-media-speelt-rol-bij-burn-outs-jongeren

http://www.nu.nl/werk-en-prive/2454435/30-plusser-gevoelig-social-media-burnout.html

http://www.ggznieuws.nl/home/aantal-mensen-met-burn-out-alarmerend/