I lost access to my Facebook account for five days recently, and I thought it might be the end of the world. What would I do after checking my Gmail account? I was at a loss. But an amazing thing happened: absolutely nothing.
People still pick up The Diamondback solely for the Sudoku and crossword puzzles, the McDonald’s in the Stamp Student Union still serves Pepsi, and our basketball team is still, well, our basketball team. Gas prices did increase, though, but I’m told that’s because I was unable to join the 5,243 new “Join this group to lower gas prices” Facebook groups that popped up during my absence. (I checked one of those groups once, and it read “Gas Saving Tip No. 1: Don’t Drive.”)
Facebook’s popularity is reaching new heights, and not just with college students anymore. In fact, according to a ComScore study, Facebook recently surpassed MySpace to become the most popular social networking site in the world, with an astonishing 123.9 million unique visitors in May. With Facebook now open to everyone, instead of only to college students as it was originally, people are running into such thorny issues as whether to accept that friend request from a parent.
Sure, Facebook has become more popular, but my time without the “social utility that connects you with the people around you” made me realize what it has done to me and the rest of our generation. The advent of new technology such as cell phones and the Internet was supposed to connect us and bring us closer together, and in a way, it has. People are now one phone call or message away. But in reality, these technological advances have pushed us farther apart, voiding the need for genuine, face-to-face interaction.
Instead of calling up a friend to make plans, you post on that friend’s Facebook wall. Instead of confronting your friend about what he said to you, you write a nasty Facebook message to him. Facebook picks up where e-mail leaves off in encouraging passive online communication.
Instead of having a reunion after a trip, you just post pictures on Facebook for all to see. On that note, it will be interesting to see if our generation will still hold high school reunions. After all, who cares what your arch nemesis in high school is doing in five years when you can find out what he is doing right now.
There is no denying Facebook can be useful, such as when you need a friend’s number or when you want to reconnect with an old classmate. But Facebook has allowed our generation to take it too far. I have heard people say they aren’t officially friends until they are friends on Facebook. But is this really a joke? What is the first thing you, and most other college students, do after meeting a fellow college student?
While previous generations read The Washington Post to get their news, our generation reads their Facebook news feed to get their breaking news alerts. Instead of caring about issues – say, housing – we are too busy finding out who broke up with whom. Is this really what we want?
I am just as guilty as the next person of the aforementioned condition. Sure, my time away from Facebook made me miss the fact that “9 of [my] friends received gifts,” but it also made me realize that none of those people are actually my real-life friends.
In an even more telling twist, there is no way to speak to a human at Facebook. All inquiries must be submitted online. Thanks to Alyssa and Rufus from Facebook’s not-so-friendly and not-so-quick-responding “User Operations Team,” I now have my Facebook account back. But do I really want it?
Joel Cohen is currently updating his Facebook status and can be reached at jcohendbk@gmail.com.
