Human Contact is Overrated... I am attending a conference at UConn for their administrators. The conference is set up to educated the old folk about thefacebook.com and The Daily Jolt.

I know nothing of the daily jolt, so I am going to represent Wesleyan as a self-proclaimed facebook addict. Before the conference comes along, I have asked my fellow presenters (both UConn students) to give me an idea of what they plan to present on. What I got wasn't what I expected...

One person didn't respond, which kind of was expected. People are busy...they have no time to respond from e-mails from guys they've never met. That's not the point.

This one girl replied with her presentation attached as a document. I read the subject heading and almost FLIPPED OUT.

"Thefacebook.com: Got Real Friends?"

My anger led me to waiting until I got to work to read it. This is by no means a personal attack of the presenter, but I disagree entirely with a lot of the points she made or examples that she gave to explain why facebook is pointless/creepy. Bear with me. This is long.

1) Many "groups" are created to attack other people or even groups of people. For example, at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota an RA named Pete Naterson was personally attacked when a group was created called "I hate Pete Naterson".

---Groups that personally attack certain people or organizations are indicative of a bigger problem at a university. I read the article about Pete Naterson, which actually only had a paragraph about Pete Naterson. The article also mentioned Public Safety hate groups at their university. The article fails to mention whether the people involved were just being ignorant assholes or if their Public Safety actually sucks. Whatever the case may be, the problem was dealt with. While I agree that the way in which the problem was presented was immature, getting your feelings out into the open (even if it's via the internet) is important. Then there are cases at some universities that are different such as homophobic or racist groups. These groups aren't facebook's fault...but they are a bigger problem of society. At Wesleyan, groups such as "The Tech" are laughed at by techies and groups such as "A cappella Sucks" are responded to with groups like "A Cappella is Awesome"...which really should be named "The A in A Cappella stands for Awesome".

2) Personal profiles are unreliable. False information is given. Pictures are manipulated. Doesn't that defeat the entire purpose of sharing information?

---Um...no. Just because someone submits a fake picture, it doesn't mean that facebook is completely useless. Some people are just hesitant to put up all of their information out of paranoia or fear of who will see it. For example, after receiving IMs from many people she didn't know, my friend Nisha at Rutgers changed her screen name on facebook to "i hate stalkers". She said that at least three people contacted her to tell her that the screen name didn't work...all three people were not people she knew. One can not take life so seriously and believe what they read on the internet. False information in people's profiles is in some ways a means of self-expression.

3) Users have the compulsion to over represent their actual friends. People are connected to friends they never talk to, haven't seen in years, or may even never have met. Define the word friend. "Some claim they are using the Facebook to reestablish old friendships. But, except for rare exceptions, what kind of friendship was it if you so easily lost contact?" It shouldn't matter how many friends you can count, if you have friends you can count on.

---Don't even get me started on that last line. This is true to some degree. Some people do friend people they've never met. We can call them one of two things...a) friendly or b) friend slut. Friendly people are reaching out a hand to people they are acquainted to and saying, "Hi, I want to be your friend" while Friend Sluts have a hunger for showing people how many people they know and how popular they are. The group "Friend Sluts" on facebook is inaccurately described. While I may have created it, the title is really just a joke. A large amount of people in the group are just friendly. I will flat out say that I think the rest of this argument is stupid. Not everyone has the skills and immunity to social awkwardness to pick up the phone and call people they've lost touch with from high school. And yes. That happens. Just because you lost contact with someone, that doesn't mean that they're not your friend or that you still can't reconnect in some way. (WARNING: this may sound condescending, but I don't mean it that way) In most cases, when you're not attending a state school, it's less likely that you're going to be attending school with your former high school classmates. Am I wrong to say that? When you get caught up in the web of college interactions and life, it's hard to keep track of everyone you knew in high school. Dismissing them as "a lost friendship" is detached and cold. There is still hope for a fading friendship, and facebook can help!

4) Thefacebook.com is an extremely impersonal form of contact. By replacing activities like telephone calls or meeting friends, it is diminishing human social contact.

---Worst argument EVER. Facebook has by no means replaced telephone calls. In fact, I think it's done just about the opposite. No one communicates solely by poking and facebook messages. Most people will use facebook to look people's phone numbers or screen names up. I wonder if this girl uses AIM or e-mail? Because the argument she is using can very well be used to say that they are impersonal forms of contact. Impersonal or not...we use them. And it's a lot easier to say something in writing than it is to get up the guts to use your vocal chords and say it out loud. I can't argue that this is right, having been victim to break-up e-mails in the past (worst thing ever), but it is a way our generation chooses to communicate. The internet does not replace the telephone or actual social gatherings, but simply provides an alternative.

5) Studies at the University of Texas at Austin and Carnegie Mellon have found that as students spend more time online they exhibit feelings of isolation, mood disorder, and chemical imbalances. These parallel the American Psychological Association's report that found Internet use can lead to pathological addiction similar to gambling. While making it seem like they are more connected than ever, thefacebook.com is actually marginalizing some people further from society.

---OMG. I am so distant and detached from society. I don't have much to say about this. Citing examples of how the INTERNET IN GENERAL causes people to have psychological problems does not justify how facebook alone could do so. The studies she gives as examples aren't explained in detail. I am really interested in what these studies entailed. So interested that I looked them up. This website includes the information from Carnegie Mellon discussed by our lovely presenter. I'd strongly recommend looking at the "Critiques" section. The study is just FULL of flaws. The study from the University of Texas, mentioned in this article, is probably more respectable, but it only indicates that high internet use is harmful. Use of the facebook for a half hour or less every day will not all of a sudden cause a chemical imbalance within you.

6) If you want to keep in contact so bad with friends, why don't you compile an address/phone number book? Call someone up to see how they are doing and show that you really care instead of poking them online. Send a letter or even a card. Go out and be social.

---Thanks for the lesson on how to be social. I find that doing everything she mentioned is made a lot easier by facebook. If I so chose to send a letter or card to my friend, I could find their campus address on facebook! What's that? I could even find out their birthday! That way I'd know when to send said card. Unfortunately, I didn't plan on sending letters or cards to my friends even before facebook came about. Stationery isn't everyone's cup of tea. Also, I love being poked just as much as I love receiving letters.

7) Students sit in front of their computers for hours looking at people's profiles who aren't their friends. They have no intention of making contact with these people, and they just want to scrutinize others to make themselves feel better. I have personally watched my friend view the site only to insult the way someone looks and question the honesty of their profile.

---Quite simply, this isn't a problem of facebook, it's the individual person's problem. Facebook isn't hotornot.com...it's a website set up for completely useful reasons, not for people to judge or rate one another.

8) Member bios are simply compiled lists of movies, books, television shows, and quotations in order to convey a particular image. But what do these things really tell us about them? Is it really necessary to sell yourself online?

---Who said we're selling ourselves? Facebook isn't a resume for friendship, but it's a way to show who you are. The lists of movies, books, and music are all interactive. You can click on each of them and find other students who share your interests. This is a lot easier than shouting from the MoCon balcony, "DOES ANYONE ELSE LIKE DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE!?!?" And no. A facebook profile isn't going to tell you everything about people, but only provides a conversation topic by which to get to know these people.

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So yeah, I feel as if I should send some constructive criticism to this girl.

  ¶ 5:33 AM