ABSTRACT
Unlike the generations of college students that predated the inception of the World Wide Web, the college student today experiences college in both real and virtual communities. Early adapters of Internet technology, today’s college students are active in several online communities in which they explore new forms of self-expression, create connections in the past improbable, and more and more blur the line between their real worlds and their virtual worlds. As high school students they grew up in a generation of computer-mediated communication media that had already moved beyond basic mailing lists and LISTSERVs. Th eir adolescent years are characterized by their use of Instant Messenger and MySpace, the interactive social networking website most popular among high school students. Th ey joined virtual communities such as Friendster and visited photo sharing websites such as Webshots. By the time they reached college, 88% were using the Internet daily and 86% brought their own computers to college (Studentmonitor.com, 2008).
