At a school where study spaces in the library double as social spaces and the aisle in our late central dining spot is described as a "runway," Dartmouth students are well accustomed to the concept of seeing and being seen, otherwise known as the both beloved and dreaded facetime.
Certainly, the small size, relative isolation and unique social scene at Dartmouth all promote the significance that facetime plays on this campus. I remember trying to describe the concept to my brother at UCLA, only to find him confused and slightly disgusted by this foreign concept.
Most Dartmouth students both facetimey and non-facetimey alike are well aware of the best places on campus to see and be seen first floor Berry, Novack, King Arthur Flour, Collis, the Green, fraternity basements and Astro 3 are among the facetime hotspots on campus. The attitudes Dartmouth students have towards facetime, however, are both complicated and varied.
Rebecca '13, who described herself as "the facetimeiest person she knows," said she understood the potential negative aspects of facetime. For her, though, facetime is not about being seen and social climbing it's about being able to recognize and say hello to almost everyone she encounters and the sense of community it builds, she said.
"I love being able to walk across the Green and see people that I know," she said. "It makes me feel warm and it makes me smile."
In response to criticism by some students that facetime is a bad thing because of its superficiality, Rebecca said that being able to recognize and say "hi" to so many people does not exclude her from having real friends.
"I don't think it's fake," she said. "It just includes all levels of knowing people."
Rebecca openly admitted to actively pursuing facetime, sometimes intentionally walking through first floor Berry and frequently going for runs on the Green where she always encounters people she knows.
Julia '13 said that while she doesn't "wake up each morning thinking about how she's going to get her facetime in," it is probably something she thinks about subconsciously.
"The most I'm aware of it is when I study on first floor Berry," she said.
The motivation behind pursuing facetime is important when assessing whether facetime is overall a good or a bad thing, according to Julia.
"If you are doing it for social capital reasons, that's when it becomes a bad thing," she said.
Other students had less positive views of facetime. Aaditya '13 said that the only people who need facetime in order to be happy are those who need constant validation from others. He said that to him, people who actively seek facetime "seem like social climbers."
Like Rebecca, Aaditya said that Dartmouth's small size and relative isolation contributed to the culture centered on facetime.
"It's a very closed-off community," he said. "It's very sheltered."
Aaditya said he thinks of facetime more as being seen than seeing people. He also challenged the notion that facetime is important for meeting people at Dartmouth.
"If no one knows who you are, just being seen by people is not going to make people know who you are," he said.
Stephen '13 said that while the term "facetime" is pretty unique to Dartmouth, the concept exists outside of Hanover.
"I think it's a phenomenon that pops up in any social setting," he said. "People sit in cafes to be noticed and admired."
He said the first time he ever heard the word was from his trip leader when he got a job working at the cash register in Foco. While he understood that some people might enjoy facetime because they "draw energy from being around all those people" he was not that type of person, he said.
"Facetime doesn't have to be negative," he said. "Facetime is just this pseudo-socializing, pseudo-being-seen thing. It ties into popularity."
Dartmouth's social scene, particularly surrounding the Greek system, supports the culture of facetime, several students said. Rebecca described tails events between sororities and fraternities as great facetime opportunities. Julia said that a fraternity that blitzes out to campus about an event is often a great place to run into people you know. Several students also described the relevance, or lack thereof, of facetime to the rush process.
"Facetime definitely means something during rush, probably more for sororities than fraternities," Aadditya said. "But do you really want to be hanging out with people who judge you for not getting enough facetime?"
Rebecca described women's rush as "girl-flirting," when girls feel pressured to talk to and see as many girls as possible.
"I wouldn't really call that facetime though," she said.
