Professor Merryman

How transparent can they be?

Can Japanese become transparent with friends they meet on the Internet? Japanese are so interdendent and privacy stricken making me wonder if true global communication can exist beyond business. As I look for ways to “connect” my students with the world, I am confronted with privacy and security issues around every corner. It seems I am spending more time trying to figure out how to protect my students than actually figuring out how to teach with technology.

As I continue using Facebook, my students are becoming more and more interested with the ability to use this popular social networking program in English. Next week, they will begin adding “friends” by searching for people with similar interests. The word “friend” in Japan means someone you have some kind of connection with. More than what we as westerners would think. Take for instance meeting someone at the gym. You may meet them only once, but the next time you see them you may introduce them to someone as a friend, “This is my friend, Gina.” Japanese on the other hand would only introduce by last name. This means simply adding “friends” feels strange. Pressing a button that says “Add as Friend” is like a commitment.  What do they think of this “Face” “Book”?

Making these commitments is one hurdle, but a bigger problem may occur once they have overcome the fear of making friends with strangers. How much information about their life are they willing to share?

For instance, in 2005, The Dog Poop Girl story featured a South Korea University student who refused to clean up the feces of her dog in a subway compartment was posted on the Internet. The story soon hit the national headlines and even the Washington Post. The Internet users were not merely content to expose her wrongful deeds. They hunted her down, and exposed her personal data. Facing mounting public pressure, the girl eventually resigned from her university (Cheung, 2007).

Programs like Facebook allow you to see what every one of your friends is doing. To take it one more step, Twitter has the ability to show what your friends are doing almost 24 hours a day, meaning your life is so exposed and transparent that it almost feels like you are living together.

This closeness can also be a great reward for my students. In a country that is made up of groups and circles, sharing your daily life is almost commonplace amongst the cell phone connected youth. If students are able to create anonymous profiles from which they build a network of friends then categorizing them into lists such as close, school, or other, they can then open another account with their real name and invite only those friends who they wish to become closer to. Such is the case in my classes. They have all opened Facebook accounts with fake names and limited personal information. This makes it possible for them to experiment with the concept of making friends this way.

Even with this anonymity in the first stages, are Japanese students going to be able to open up enough to the world? What will it take for them to “reach out and touch someone (a reference to an AT&T slogan)”?