Social network or stalker device?
A friend of mine seems to think that you only have as many friends as the internet can verify.
Thank you, Facebook! Now I can prove to people that I actually do have friends- all 13 of them.
I’m convinced that you can find absolutely anybody on Facebook: friends you haven’t seen since high school, Spring Break hookups (given you found out their last name before you left Cancun), your long-lost twin who was separated at birth, anyone. I’m telling you, we’ve been looking for Osama Bin Laden in all the wrong places. I’m sure we’d find him on Facebook if we just did a global search.
Facebook- the online global yearbook. There are those names you recognize in conversation but don’t always know by face, and to find out who certain people are these days, you Facebook him/her. Shamefully, that’s what I do, and I know everyone does it, too. Anytime I hear the latest gossip where a name is mentioned that I don’t recognize, I look it up. And when I see that person on campus, I start to recall their profile: “Oh yeah, that’s so and so; single, conservative; interests include movies, music and underwater basket weaving.”
What concerns me is the fact that Facebook is just another avenue for a stalker to take. It’s all there: e-mail, screen name, residence, major, even the classes being taken this semester.
Facebook covers all the bases for a dating ad: interests, political views, sexual preference. If only they had used “Seeking” instead of “Interested In.”
Facebook also covers the relationship status in case you’re wondering if someone is taken or on the market. I’d say the hardest part of breaking up these days is having to edit your personal info on Facebook. Going in and changing your relationship status from “In a Relationship with so And so” to “Single” and “Looking for Whatever I Can Get” is just one more thing you have to do in addition to burning all the pictures and getting rid of any other relationship memorabilia. And, as you sit there analyzing the phrase “Looking for Whatever I Can Get,” you question whether or not you’ve reached a new kind of low. You never thought it would come that.
I don’t quite understand the whole poking feature. Is it supposed to be some form of online flirting when someone “pokes” you?
It’s always interesting to see the friends that a person has elsewhere, and you wonder what that says about them. You begin to judge them based on the quality of the schools that their friends go to. You’ve got the Texan native, whose friends all go to Texas. You’ve also got the ivy league reject, whose friends all got into the ivy leagues, but they didn’t. You’ve got the non-Texan, whereby you can tell what their home state is from the school on their list with the most friends. And then you have the popular person who has got friends from practically every school.
There are those people who seem to compulsively update their profile everyday, adding to their list of quotes and favorites, changing their picture; and you wonder how they have so much time on their hands. But then again, how would you know that if you didn’t check your Facebook everyday? And not just check to see who has changed their profiles, but you actually click on their recently updated profile to see what exactly they’ve changed.
Groups. There is some group called “I Hate It When Peanut Butter Sticks to the Roof of My Mouth.” I wonder if there’s an “I Hate Ann Truong” group. Oh wait, there is. It’s called my mother. Oh boy, she’s going to kill me for that one. JK, Mom. JK.
Ah yes, another way to waste time. That’s just what I need, another distraction. As if video games, internet games, music downloads, Instant Messenger and e-mail weren’t distractions enough. And for someone who can’t sleep these days, it’s another reason to stay up longer. But it’s reassuring to know that I’m not alone, because there’s a group for that, too.
