How Facebook Can Ruin Study Abroad

By Robert Huesca. Taking an administrative leave in Benin for the past six months provided an eye-opening contrast to my first study-abroad experience, in Mexico City back in 1980. Of particular note was the insidious impact of new communication technologies on living and learning in another culture.
As a former director of the office of international programs at Trinity University, in San Antonio, I am particularly attuned to the issues that concern professionals in study abroad—ranging from cultural immersion to health and safety. All of those issues seem to have been transformed for good and for ill by advances in information and communication technology.
While in Benin, I lived in the town of Ouidah, population 90,000, on the Atlantic coast of this West African republic. I had signed up with a program called the Humanity Exchange, which organizes volunteer opportunities and French-language instruction. Read more...