I'm sure all of you have shared this experience: you are sitting in your dorm room watching your blitz mailbox religiously waiting for the cool upperclassman to reply to your inquiry about pong when all of the sudden you receive a message that someone on Thefacebook.com wants to be your friend. I've experienced this phenomenon multiple times, and I am now the proud friend of students from the institutions of Oregon, Eastern and San Diego. What makes this a big deal is the fact that I have never met, spoken to or even heard of these facebook friends.
What is it with the almost universal obsession with Thefacebook.com? Is it because it is a necessary program to allow students to meet each other? Does being a friend on Thefacebook.com signify that the two people are friends in reality? Does the number of friends one has on his facebook profile translate to how popular he is around campus? Or maybe Thefacebook.com allows students to show their true personality in a society that promotes conformity?
The answer to all of these questions, of course, is no. In fact, Thefacebook.com serves essentially no purpose, yet everyone I know, including myself, is consumed by it.
The fact of the matter is that it is easier to meet people by approaching them in a social setting and making conversation. I have plenty of friends that aren't on my facebook list, and I have a good amount of facebook friends that I would probably be hesitant to acknowledge in public. Furthermore, some of the coolest people make themselves extra cool by refusing to participate in Thefacebook.com fad and chastising anyone who takes the time to immediately approve friends.
If anything, Thefacebook.com allows students to fake their personality by tailoring their interests and personal quotes to make themselves look as fashionable as possible. These examples from my personal experience clearly disprove any theory for Thefacebook.com's social value.
On that note, there are a few specific aspects of Thefacebook.com that make me lose sleep at night. The first thing that bothers me is the common practice to use a cool and trendy image depicting you and all your friends raging as your facebook picture instead of a simple portrait. The alternative to this is the incredibly annoying artistic or interpretation-inducing picture. I can't speak for everyone else, but I would rather be able to see what you actually look like than have to pick you out of a crowd of partying dudes.
Another thing that annoys me is when people put "drinking" or "playing pong" or "beer" as one of their interests. Look, I know that you go to college and like to make a big deal about how social and wild you are. However, even though I'm happy that you think you could drink me under the table, I would prefer to learn about your deeper and more personal interests. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who lists an alcoholic activity as one of their interests is probably just trying to compensate for their social discontent. Enough said.
The final thing that I will mention regarding my irritation with Thefacebook.com concerns the informal facebook etiquette code. If someone requests to be my friend, I'm not supposed to approve them for a couple days in order to show that I have better things to do than check facebook every five minutes. If I meet someone new, I'm not supposed to request to be her friend until a few days later in order to give the impression that I stumbled across her name rather than actively searched for her. Moreover, I should never update my profile more than once a month because it shows that I care too much about my electronic social life and, naturally, not enough about my real one.
I'm doing my part to fight this obnoxious etiquette code -- I make a point of approving a friend as soon as I receive the blitz, and I do occasionally send friend requests to people who I met the night before. I encourage everyone to do the same.
The fact of the matter is that Thefacebook.com is simply a necessary evil. Regardless of my protests against Thefacebook.com culture, it will continue to be one of the most popular college networks. It should be used as a way to acknowledge the new acquaintances that you met in some basement the night before and nothing more. Thefacebook.com should not be used to try to prove how popular you are or how much you like to party. Basically, the less we talk about Thefacebook.com the better. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go update my facebook picture with the new image of me double-fisting Keystone Lights.
