College and Facebook: Know the Boundaries

When Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook all those years back, it’s doubtful that he pictured people using it for some of the things they do now. Since the end of middle school, I have witnessed any number of socially insane trends develop from the comfort of my bedroom, and each has been more creepy than the last. If you have ever considered exhibiting any of the following actions described, you may want to rethink where your reputation will go.

• Friending a lot of people you don’t know in the college page
  • The act itself isn’t the worst thing you can do, especially at the beginning of freshman year. However, a large majority of people are not always comfortable getting a friend request from someone they have yet to meet in person. Compound that with the lingering thought in the back of their heads that this new person could very well be combing through their entire life, and you have a thoroughly creeped out individual. Add in a few messages and pokes without any in-person interaction, and get ready for them to block you.
• Polarized Facebook Activism
  • I bet he did envision a future of political, social and economic activism. Just not the paralyzingly polarized stuff that’s floating out there today. Try having an argument with a person from class about politics, and BOOM you’re deleted. Absolutely ridiculous. Then class is uncomfortable for at least one of you too.
• Getting in long and frivolous arguments
  • The opposite of shutting down and refusing interaction, the “Facebook Lawyer,” as we like to call it, knows pretty much everything there is to say about their side because of the tab they have open with Google search at the ready. Just when you thought you won, think again. Our favorite part of people doing this on social media is how non-confrontational they are when the Great Wall of Computer Screen isn’t protecting them and they’re caught out in public. If you’re getting into it on Facebook, be prepared to do the same in person or don’t do it at all.
• Letting Facebook hit you with all that situational ADD
  • Do you look at your phone without further provocation? Do you see the text light blinking when it most certainly isn’t? Well, you certainly sound like a candidate for someone suffering from onset Facebook  situational ADD. See, FB ADD is bad because, on top of being constantly distracted by your phone and needing to check your news feed, you can never bring yourself to delete the vice because of obvious social consequences you will face by taking yourself out of the loop.
• All around wasting time from messing around on FB
  • Actually, everyone does this. And Facebook stalking. FB stalking is like pooping. Everyone does it, no guy believes girls do it, and no one talks about it!

Bottom line in all this is there are some do’s and do not’s that should generally be adhered to for using Facebook. If followed properly, they will help mitigate making you the inside joke of people’s friend circles via screen shots in their group messages.

-Jim