Hi I am Jake, the Student Services Manager in the Brisbane campus.
When I joined facebook in 2007, I couldn’t understand the hype. I joined it for curiosity but I had no idea of the impact that it would have on the way we communicate with each other. In the years since, I’ve come to realise that the power of Facebook is in how it makes it easier to keep people in your life longer, despite distance or language barriers, than would otherwise be possible. Working at Langports, in such an international environment, you get to know so many different and interesting people every single day and Facebook gives us the opportunity of keeping in touch with them once they leave Langports!
It’s very rare these days to find someone who isn’t on Facebook! Facebook has become such a wonderful tool for connecting and keeping in touch. In just a few clicks, we can share our thoughts and feelings, as well as photos, videos and music with our friends and loved ones. My wife’s family live on the other side of the world, and we’ll often share photos or short videos of our growing family with them on Facebook. For us, it’s made that distance seem much smaller.
Sure, it doesn’t have the same excitement as the anticipation of receiving a letter or a post card, but it allows us to stay connected with those around us. Let’s call it the ‘fast food’ of communication.
Yes, ‘fast food’ can be bad for us, but in such a global society, Facebook allows us to cross borders and bypass language barriers. This immediate connection can help build that feeling of a truly global Langports family. If anyone has ever been to the Langports Facebook page, they will see that it has 5,015 ‘likes’ and is still growing. It’s fair to say that most of these ‘likes’ are from past or present students. That’s a pretty big family!
Facebook also acts as a tool for building and maintaining friendships. There is a group of students in Switzerland who still use Facebook to arrange meetings at different times and catch up with old friends and reminisce about their time at Langports. Some of these students did not even study together, but met through the Langports Facebook page! How’s that for connecting people!!!
So remember, next time you have a friend request from your mum or dad, your aunty or uncle, your cousin or just someone that you used to study with, remember that Facebook can bring you closer together than ever before.