Dominican: Facebook: Here to stay?

Angela Romano

What’s All The Fuss About Facebook?

College students are currently under the spell of a newfound phenomenon called Facebook. Most college students would agree that Facebook is the biggest procrastinating tool made today. It documents every action a user's friends have recently taken on. These include the mundane: Colleen and Craig are now friends, the monotonous: Jeff now became a member of The Seinfeld fan club, and the juicy: Laura and Dan ended their relationship. And in case it matters, each action is time-stamped to the minute.

Being socially connected with friends 24/7 when it’s convenient, fun, and entertaining, who wouldn’t form some sort of mild obsession? It starts off with a simple curiosity of the site and before you know it, logging onto facebook becomes a necessity and part of your daily routine. Suddenly you are fixated to your computer and the only thing on the screen is Facebook and maybe the paper you should be writing minimized at the bottom.

With Facebook becoming more and more popular, the real question is: is Facebook useful or is it just a way to put off doing important things?

Dominican Student Alma Magallanes believes that Facebook is simply there to distract her. “I check it daily and multiple times. I’m not even doing anything that thought provoking on there, but I feel that it’s just become a part of my daily routine.”

Since procrastinating seems to be mastered by many college students, it’s not a surprise that many students use Facebook as a way to put of doing academic work. Dominican student Mark Besch is a big fan of Facebook, but finds he checks the site when homework is piled up on his desk. “Procrastinating is my middle name and facebook is definitely not helpful when I’m trying to write a paper,” Besch said. “I’ll write some stuff and then check Facebook. It has really just become a habit.”

Since Facebook seems to be an epidemic that no one can quite figure out, it’s fascinating to hear about what drastic measures people go to in order to break their habit. Dominican student Anjeli Raheja revealed how bad her obsession was when it came around to finals week last year. She says, “I knew Facebook would come back to bite me when I got my finals grades, so I decided to have my friend change my password and not tell me it until after all my finals were done.”

Technology these days have made it almost inevitable to not become obsessed with Facebook. It’s rare these days to see someone without a “Crack Berry”, and what’s the feature that most people are drawn to? -The constant access to e-mail and Facebook. Advertisers for these phones are realizing the addiction and promoting the use of Facebook as one of the main features on their phone.

But why all the fuss over Facebook? According to Oak Park therapist Jacqueline LeSaily, it has a lot to do with feeling accepted. “When it comes to Facebook, it turns into an addiction with being in constant communication people. You feel loved and important and therefore feel good about yourself.” She does believe though that Facebook can be healthy. “It’s a good tool to stay connected with friends that you aren’t able to talk with everyday, “LeSaily said. “It is extremely useful in that aspect.”

Teachers, parents, and business people are finding themselves hooked with this new form of communication also. Computer science professor at Dominican, Janet Helwig, believes Facebook is one of the greatest forms of technology out there. “You get to create your own profile and essentially you’re creating something that is an expression of yourself. I have a page myself and it’s become very useful.”

According to PCWorld, as of August 2008, there are 90 million active users on Facebook and has over 6.6 billion photos stored on the site. So does this mean that Facebook is here to stay or is it just a trend that will soon die down once something more advanced comes along?

Dominican Student George Munleanu seems to think Facebook isn’t going anywhere. “It’s the new way of communicating. With old ways of communicating, like letters, you’d have to wait days to get a response. Now it’s instant and I think that’s something people are drawn to.”