Share
Well, for those of you who just so happened to ?facebook? (sadly, a new verb in our collegiate vocabulary) early yesterday morning, you?re aware of the site?s latest, scariest advancements.
It seems like in the past few months, the facebook team has done a lot of advancing. What happened to the old facebook where everyone put up their ?best picture? (because, come on, we all know that you really didn?t look like that) and stalked people harmlessly, checking out the cute guy in your biology classes? favorite music each day? What can compare to the joy of adding new classmates as ?friends?? Sadly, that facebook is gone.
Those days are gone and while some new features have been great additions, such as FaceTix and others, it seems that they?ve taken it a little too far.
Honestly, notes? If you want to ?blog,? go log into your MySpace or Xanga account. Avid MySpace haters are sure to notice that Facebook, indeed, may just be going in that same direction?the MySpace way.
Statuses, or Facebook away messages as some call them, were the beginning of the creepiness. Sure, now they may seem useful and most of have fallen victim to them, but honestly no one really cares if you?re ?SOOOO hungover? or not.
Furthermore, are these ?News/Mini Feeds? really necessary? Since when is it news that you?ve added a new friend or that your new favorite TV show is now Laguna Beach Season 3 instead of season 2? Last time we checked, no one cares.
If you can find out all these things about people just by logging on, is there any point of face-to-face interaction or talking anymore? Next, you?ll be able to have facebook parties online and update your friends of each beer pong win and the course of the night?s events. On the other hand, I am sure you could already do something like this through the usage of ?your notes? and by ?tagging? last night?s pictures.
We all might as well connect ?facecams? to our computers so that everyone can see and know exactly what we?re doing at any given time.
Get the point? If not, try this one. If Facebook's next move is to add profile stalkers (or the idea that you can see exactly who has looked and how many times at your profile and vice versa), would you still facebook? I think not. After all, isn?t that the underlining point? To stalk? Whether it?s your best friend, boyfriend or that hot guy or girl in your Chem class? It?s safe to say that the majority of students at Tech would not facebook so much anymore if such strident counter-stalking measures came to be.
Now, hopefully the team of facebook geniuses is smart enough to never to include this, but it does put things into perspective for those of you who think all these new advances are ?cool.?
Another question for facebook is, what exactly is the appropriate age to de-activate your account? Or by that we mean, sigh, leave the world of facebook. Can we continue to have these accounts and profiles when our own kids are in college? Wouldn?t you love for your kids to see your picture count up to 7,984 and which one of your college friends hasn?t aged a bit? All you have to do is change emails, merge networks and TADA, facebook just might last forever.
It?s become as much of part of the collegiate (and high school now- blah.) experience as football games, classes and parties. However, all of this aside, the fact of the matter is that the majority of us will continue to use the site and facebook everyday.
For those of you who think that whoever doesn?t like these new changes should just remove their profiles and stop complaining, well, you might have a point, but haters and lovers alike know that it is an addiction and one that is still hard to break.
Bottom line: with all these new stalking techniques, it may be time, if you have not already, to adjust those ?privacy settings.?
Leave a comment 3 Comments Write a letter to the editor
All letters to the editor must include a name, e-mail, daytime phone number and affiliation to Virginia Tech. Affiliation includes: year and major for students; position and department for faculty and staff; current city for alumni and parents.
totally agree with you, it's very ridiculous what's going on and they won't listen or do anything about it until something happens. Face book is just one big trend that'll soon pass just like my space and aim.
Reply to this Top
how can we change our settings and watch for stalkers when the stupid facebook runners are changing all the stuff. i been thru it before and know it happens. so have fun answering my question :)
Reply to this Top
You sign up for Facebook at your own risk. Facebook is only as safe as people will let it be. If you set your privacy settings to "friends only", then only the people you add as friends on Facebook can see your activity. If you add people you don't know well, that's your problem. When you get onto the topic of stalking, a person can only see as much as you allow them too. If your privacy settings aren't private enough they might be able to see everything on your profile, including your picture, statuses, and personal information.
People use statuses for more than just stuff no one cares about. Like when school starts for example. Students post their schedules on Facebook so that they can compare and see which classes they have with which people and teachers. Not all status posts are things no one cares about.
I don't think that there is an age limit for having a Facebook. Facebook is used to share pictures with other people and communicate with people you may not ever see or talk to any other way. I also don't see a problem with parents having a Facebook and people having a lot of pictures. Pictures are memories and some people want to share those memories with other people.
Facebook is only as safe as you let it be. There isn't an age limit to having a Facebook account. Statuses aren't always about things no one cares about. It's up to you.
Reply to this Top