2008 Woodie Awards
Weekly Discourse: The Facebook
Another way to avoid personal contact or a great new resource?
Max Lux
Issue date: 12/9/04 Section: Op/Ed
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Currently there is a major trend sweeping across campus, a new wonderful time waster, the likes of which have not been seen since the Super Mario epidemic of three years past. A way to unwind, make friends, chill out and just have fun, even on the darkest and most rainy days. Of course, the wonderful new piece of information technology I'm speaking of is The Facebook.
Gone are the days of Internet journals, where even the most insignificant could complain about even the tiniest nuances of their lives in sweeping, epic detail. Finished are the websites aimed at college students, peddling sex in order to extract precious site-hits from drunken frats brothers, attracted to low-brow headlines like "free sex now." A new age is dawning, and that age is the age of The Facebook.
Ok, I'm being mostly facetious, but in all sincerity, thefacebook.com is a really cool little invention that is useful not only for tracking down old friends, but also meeting people at your college with similar interests, with whom you probably would have never associated in the first place.
All you do is type in your name, your email address, your school and anything else you want to provide about yourself, heck, even a photograph; then, you're in. It's that simple. I came back to college after Thanksgiving Break to find all my friends here signed on, so I just flipped on my computer and decided to see what all the fuss is about.
What I found was an intricate network of students from all over the globe, a place where you could find those friends you lost track of after high school, or the name of that cute girl from your chemistry class last semester. Type in some interests and, soon enough, you'll find others on the campus just like you, and, if provided, you can get their screen name and get to know them better.
This may sound elementary to some, but it's just a cool little techno-toy you can fiddle around with for a time. The novelty wears off considerably after the first week you're on, yet it's nice to check back week in and week out to see what new friends you've made, or who else has joined that cool club you've created.
Gone are the days of Internet journals, where even the most insignificant could complain about even the tiniest nuances of their lives in sweeping, epic detail. Finished are the websites aimed at college students, peddling sex in order to extract precious site-hits from drunken frats brothers, attracted to low-brow headlines like "free sex now." A new age is dawning, and that age is the age of The Facebook.
Ok, I'm being mostly facetious, but in all sincerity, thefacebook.com is a really cool little invention that is useful not only for tracking down old friends, but also meeting people at your college with similar interests, with whom you probably would have never associated in the first place.
All you do is type in your name, your email address, your school and anything else you want to provide about yourself, heck, even a photograph; then, you're in. It's that simple. I came back to college after Thanksgiving Break to find all my friends here signed on, so I just flipped on my computer and decided to see what all the fuss is about.
What I found was an intricate network of students from all over the globe, a place where you could find those friends you lost track of after high school, or the name of that cute girl from your chemistry class last semester. Type in some interests and, soon enough, you'll find others on the campus just like you, and, if provided, you can get their screen name and get to know them better.
This may sound elementary to some, but it's just a cool little techno-toy you can fiddle around with for a time. The novelty wears off considerably after the first week you're on, yet it's nice to check back week in and week out to see what new friends you've made, or who else has joined that cool club you've created.