1. Tales From Facebook Daniel Miller, 2011
Presentations should be about 4 minutes in length (5 minutes maximum).
Provide the title, author, and year published of the book you read.
Provide an overview of the book using the topics in your paper as a guide.
Tell us how the topic applies to our class (and if it does not, tell us that).
Let us know if you would recommend the book to others.
If you would like to use PowerPoint slides, please upload them using FileZilla to your public_html folder and then provide a link to the .ppt file on your homepage.
Katie Przystac CS

2. About the Book… Separated into two sections
12 Portraits
Marriage Dun Mash Up
Community
For Whom the Bell Doesn’t Toll
The Book of Truth
Cultivating Farmville
Avatar
Time Stuck
Getting the Word Out
It Was Just Sex
Its Who You Know
Picking BlackBerrys
The history Women
Anthropological View
The Invention of Fasbook
Fifteen Theses on what Facebook Might Be
The Frame of Facebook
Tales of Facebook is set in Trinidad. The author chose this setting to carry out his research with a goal to see what an impact that Facebook has on this culture. He talks about how localization shapes us into diverse individuals, and he wanted to see how Facebook changed the people of the Trinidadian culture. The book is separated into two different parts. The majority of the book is about the “12 portraits of Facebook. The 12 portraits on the slide covered the many issues that come up with Facebook in this culture today. Then there is the anthropological view of Facebook which talks about what makes Facebook Trinidadian, and what makes Facebook important.

3. About Facebook “Fasbook” “Macobook”
The focus of the book is what Facebook is becoming, rather than what Facebook has been. The two terms, macobook, and fasbook, are what the people of the trinidadian culture use when they refer to Facebook. These words are extremely close to how we describe Facebook and they have the same meanings. This proves that regardless of geographical location, Facebook has made an impact in many lives. When referring to the word “Macobook”,‘Maco’ means becoming nosy about another’s life. When referring to the word “fasbook”, with ‘fas’ meaning getting in another persons business in an inappropriate way. The meanings of these words is what Facebook is all about. Because it is a social network, whatever you put out on the Internet is out there for everyone to see, leading others to become nosy.

4. Privacy Dangers: Hackers Marital Privacy Personal Privacy
Just like any other social networking site, Facebook has multiple privacy issues. Although there are many privacy settings on Facebook, there always seems to be a way to get around it. One of the biggest issues that I found people of the Trinidadian culture had was people hacking their accounts. Hackers ranged from random people to spouses. Because there is so much personal information that is put on Facebook, there is essentially no privacy whatsoever, and this makes a person extremely vulnerable. Everything that you post, whether it is a status, a relationship post, where you live, or a picture of yourself, allows others to learn more and more about you and it can be very dangerous. It can damage your image for business, but also damage a marriage.

5. Relationship Issues “Marriage Dun Mash Up” Obsessive Friends? Gossip
One of the chapters that I found to be interesting was called “Marriage Dun Mash Up.” The chapter is all about how Facebook can destroy ones marriage. Because there is so much information about a person that is put up on Facebook, there is no privacy, leading to relationship issues. The chapter was a story about a man and his wife and how Facebook made the wife become obsessive about every aspect of her husbands life. She was always questioning him who his new friends were, how did he know them, and where did he know them from. She got his password info and found herself constantly creeping on his Facebook. Every move that her husband made on Facebook was tracked by not only his wife, but anyone else who happened to click on his page. The point of this story is that the wife was no longer in a relationship with her husband, but she was in a relationship with Facebook.

6. Time Stuck
The average person in Trinidad with limited access to the internet spent about 6-8 hours a week on Facebook.
Another chapter that I found to be interesting was called “Time Stuck.” The chapter discussed the dangers of Facebook concerning the amount of time that the people of Trinidad spent on it. There are so many things to do on Facebook such as online gamming, updating your profile with statuses and pictures, and communication aspects which get you hooked. On Facebook, you can be someone who you aren't, which can lead to positive affects, by giving one more self confidence. Those people find themselves glued to the computer screen because they are a different person in the virtual world. Online gamming was also a major contributor to how much time people spend on facebook, especially Farmville in many Trinidad communities. Although some online gamming may not be bad for kids, kids are now getting hooked on these games which affects how they are performing in school, work, and socially in the real world.

7. Applying to the Class Privacy Freedom of speech
When relating to the class, the book showed the many issues concerning privacy and Facebook. You could relate privacy to freedom of speech on Facebook because whatever you say on the internet, especially Facebook, will be out there forever. This can be dangerous because if you put something out on Facebook that is inappropriate, it could come back to haunt you especially when looking for jobs. In many communities in Trinidad, everyone know everyone, and the way you portray yourself on the internet, will have a big impact on how those in your community views you as well.

8. Recommendation
I would recommend this book to the class if they wanted to learn about social media networks such as Facebook. I thought it was interesting how it was about a study in Trinidad, but the information was very broad and dry at times.