Archive for February, 2007

I have an addiction. It’s not to heroin, cocaine, alcohol or even cigarettes. It’s to the internet, no, actually, it’s to Facebook. This seemingly harmless website that was started three years ago by some Harvard university student who just wanted to connect people on his campus has barrelled into a mass community website for over 27 million people around the world – and 64% of those people log onto Facebook more than once a day – most of them visiting for hours at a time. I’m not judging, because I’m one of these people, and although a lot of my friends and I often joke about the amount of time spent on this website, calling each other stalkers and creeps, I’ve realized that it’s not that funny.

I’ve been noticing lately that there are a lot of people I can recognize on campus by their faces and wonder where I’ve seen them before. It’s not long before I realize I’ve seen them tagged in someone’s photograph listed on Facebook detailing the events of another Saturday night out with friends. I’ve been told, myself, that people know me based on my Facebook profile – which prompted me to change my privacy settings on the site to limited to those not on my “friends” list – but what was the difference, I noticed. Even with this limited profile setting, I still have 166 friends in my Windsor network, over 120 in my Toronto network and sporadic friends listed in networks at colleges and universities all over North America. I don’t talk to these people. I know them, or more accurately, I did know them – at one time. Maybe we spoke in high school, or even elementary school or had class with them in second year, second semester – regardless of the meeting, if they’re recognized somehow while surfing the site, you can bet the “add this person as a friend” link is pushed by many. I’m not saying that the entire website’s subscribers are addicted or have this obsession with searching for people they once knew – anyone they’ve ever come in contact with – but the random posting, searching, viewing, poking does occur by many – admit it. Even if it’s not yourself, chances are, one of your friends is on that site writing
on your wall, asking why you’re not on more often.

The thing is – the people I mostly “wall post” on Facebook are my friends, my actual physical “everyday” friends. I have these people on MSN, I have their phone numbers and most of them actually live less than a five minute walk away. Yet I’ll post on their wall before using any of the aforementioned actions to contact them.

When MSN became a phenomenon, and everyone began to have it and exchanging emails became the new exchanging phone numbers, a lot of people were concerned with the lack of physical communication people we were going to have with one another. Others argue that the internet actually expands our social networking within the community in which we live; saying that without this easy, comfortable, non-intrusive way to communicate with others, people would hide behind shy personalities and never exert their potential to become comfortable with communicating with others in the first place.

With these pros and cons going back and forth in regards to the communication via online or in person, comes Facebook – another alternate way to communicate. Facebook is “the new MSN”. It’s a statement that I’ve said, my friends have said and I’ve overheard. Why? Because of that fabulous feature on Facebook – the “comment wall”. A place where anyone listed in this extensive friends list can write you messages. It differs from MSN because you don’t have to reply right away without seeming rude – for your online “status” doesn’t tell anyone you’re online unless you change it to some catchy third person sentence – which doesn’t even apply to you actually being there (even though, chances are, we probably are). I’ll even admit – I spend most of my time in “busy” on MSN – because, I start my day off with a lot of things needing to be completed – and I don’t have time for conversations on MSN. Somehow, I find time for Facebook though. Why is that? I think it has something to do with the way we word our comments on people’s walls. Everyone can see what we write on people’s walls and what they write on ours. They are written for the receiver, but worded for those who read them – because anyone can. Let’s not forget that no one can see who actually messages us on MSN either.

Does Facebook make us cool? Does the amount of friends we have really matter, especially when we don’t even talk to more than half of them? All these questions, and so many more, I asked myself and realized now that I’d still now focused on my addiction to Facebook, whether for or against it, instead of doing my homework – it was still preventing me from living my life and doing what I needed to do.

So I made the decision to delete it – like a BandAid – because that was the only way I’d be able to rid myself of this addiction – quick and easy. Although, apparently, it’s not so easy. I know my way around the Facebook site so I clicked on “My Account” and amongst all the questions regarding my contact information; I see a heading and link to “deactivate my account”. Deactivate? – I think – that’s not deleting. Then I try and find an alternate link for actual deletion to no avail. I continue on with “deactivating my account” and I’m given choices by the site – they want to survey why I’m deactivating. Out of the eight options they ask, I find four of them to be based on behaviour patterns of a how the site is used.
I found it interesting because obviously even the creators of the site know that it’s being used by people with addictive personalities (option six: I spend too much time on the Facebook site) and perhaps not in the safest way (option seven: I don’t feel safe on the site) and there’s no point (option two: I don’t find Facebook useful) or even my personal favourite –option four: Facebook is resulting in social drama for me.

How are we supposed to get rid of this addiction, should we choose the quick and easy BandAid version? Facebook obviously doesn’t want us to – as underneath these survey options was the question to opt out of receiving emails from Facebook because even though you deactivate your account – your friends can still tag you in photos, invite you
to events or ask you to join groups. I was confused. None of that seemed like deleting my account – so now I was going to deactivate my access to my profile – but others could still see it? What is that?

Should you choose this approach to ridding yourself of this Facebook phenomenon, don’t worry if it’s a mistake in judgement one late evening – as Facebook makes sure to let you know that you can easily reactivate your account by simply entering your email and password in the login page.

Funny, isn’t that what we every day to sign in anyway?

I was part of an argument yesterday, while I was trying to study for midterms I have this week. I know the argument started unwittingly and unintentionally but it continued because of lack of consideration – and quite frankly, ignorance, I believe. I was told, in so many words, in terms of the university I attend and the program I’m currently in, I couldn’t possibly understand the amount of workload a friend of mine has at her accredited university. I do understand workload; I understand workload is different for everyone – even people in the exact same program. Yet, here we got into this argument where one person got increasingly offended and the other kept shoving her foot further in further into her mouth.

It ended abruptly because I already saw myself losing concentration and didn’t want to be condescendingly spoken to anymore, while I’d just spent eight hours (with another four to go) at the library studying for my program’s midterms this week. I couldn’t sleep last night, because it was bothering me, not what happened but the belief that this is the stereotype I probably get from a lot, and I’m not alone. I go to a school that’s rated poorly on the Maclean’s annual university ranking system – however, there’s been so much backlash on that rating system lately that it isn’t even deemed appropriate anymore by many. Yet there is still this stigma with my university – and furthermore, with my Communications program. I get so many people asking me what I’m going to do “with a degree like that” and where I’m going to be – I don’t know, exactly. The thing is, it’s not because I feel there isn’t anything to do with it – the reason I don’t know is because there are so many options and I don’t know what is best for me, what suits me. I get so upset, so passionate about what I study because it’s a part of who I am. When someone says something that undermines me, my intelligence or the education processes from the establishment that teaches me – I’m going to be upset.

I wasn’t apologized to once it was over. I didn’t expect to be, but there was no remorse – well, there was – but for saying them the way they were said – not that they were said at all. I don’t see a difference. I view it as classicism – an “I’m better than you” mentality, so I couldn’t possibly understand.

So I couldn’t sleep. I woke up at 5:00 AM and tossed and turned until I gave up and just got up and studied for my midterm at ten. And amidst studying, I got to thinking.
My program is highly recommended. I go to a university that’s been around since the sixties and has educated and graduated students that practice law all over North America, Engineers in all fields, hundreds of thousands of Nurses and countless other departments have provided useful education for everyone who attends.

I wish I were in this easier university, with standards that were less strict than others. I wish I were in this program that really doesn’t require much work. Okay, fine, most people aren’t even aware about the Communications program or what it is, or what it does or why we have it. But I do. And that’s part of the reason I’m in it – to educate others about it.

I wish I were in a program that has answers – yes and no – right and wrong. I wish I were in a program that provided a set rule book, one that I just had to memorize from page to page in order to receive my ‘A’. But I can’t be. I’m part of a program that gives out degrees based on constant knowledge – knowledge that changes every single day – to be successful. This knowledge has to be sought out – it isn’t found in everyday sources or fifty year old books. There is no right or wrong answer – it’s opinion and arguments in a world full of closed minded people – it’s no easy task.

We study media (that’s – television, radio, printing press – history of, journalism, broadcasting, etc), yes, as well as business, politics, marketing, philosophy, public relations, human behaviour and psychology. We track how the human mind is manipulated by those in charge and why it’s so seemingly simple for those in power to remain in power. Knowledge in my program is not right or wrong. It cannot be memorized – it cannot be graded on who knows how to string along the best sentence. It’s about passion and the knowledge that comes with that passion. The passion to want to learn more, do more, change more and educate others.

We live in a society that’s humanitarianly horrible to our community, environment and each other. I go to school and learn in a program that deals with ignorance every day. I learn each and every day how there are people in this world that want to continue this ignorance that occurs because this continued ignorance allows power to continue for those who should never have had it in the first place. I go to school and learn about this program – this “Communications bird program that isn’t as difficult as more traditional programs” – this way of life in which we live – and somehow make it through each day without wanting to kill myself because I learn about how this world really operates and it scares the shit out of me.

No, my program is easy, easy without the rose coloured glasses so many of us wear in terms of the communities in which we live. We’re so safe, secure and comfortable with our $200 university textbooks that publish edition upon edition to say the same thing, we hide behind these degrees thinking by just a paper on a wall, we’ve accomplished enough and that’s it. This degree I’m in – it doesn’t end with a piece of paper mounted on my wall, framed nicely in black painted wood. I can never get enough credentials to achieve greatness – I will keep going. I have to keep going. I have to keep going to try and change what we already know about the way the world operates – so that our future will have guidance and ability to wake up and not die once we open the front door.

Yes, I am in this easy, not as important university as others. We’re just here, for fun.