Facebook.com, a social networking site aimed at college students, has found a home within the lives of Uni students. What's all the hype about? A look inside the new way to connect to old friends …

By Roveiza Irfan
Gargoyle co-editor-in-chief
Published Friday, Dec. 16, 2005, Gargoyle, features

THE LIST of distractions has grown. From instant messaging to e-mail and blogging to Web surfing, students already have plenty of things to keep them from doing their homework in the evening. But now something even more addictive has emerged as a diversion: facebook.com.

Getting connected

Created in February 2004, Facebook is an online directory that connects students through social networks at almost 2,500 colleges in predominantly the United States. Since its creation, an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 new members sign up per day. The success of the college Facebook has led to the creation of a high school Facebook in September 2005, which now connects thousands of high schoolers across the country.

While it would seem that Uni students would flock to sign up for high school Facebook, most of the Uni's Facebook users are signed up for the college version. How? Facebook allows people to register as long as they have an e-mail address ending in “.edu,” meaning students, faculty, and alumni from the supported colleges can sign up for accounts.

“We happen to have .edu e-mails so we get past that roadblock,” says junior Dana Al-Qadi.

“It's a flaw in the system,” says senior Josie Chambers.

A new take on an old idea

Facebook is sometimes described as an online picture book that allows new members to sign up, post their photo, and fill out boxes detailing their favorite books, movies, and music, interests, clubs and jobs, political preferences and more.

Members can fill in as much or as little as they want. Since all the information is hyperlinked, other users from your school can track you down through anything listed in your profile. For example, if someone were to do a search on “The Catcher in the Rye,” the returning hits would show all the people at the school who have “The Catcher in the Rye” listed as one of their favorite books.

“I think it's a good way to stay in touch with past alums, get involved in the community, and sort of learn a little more about college life,” says senior David Martinsek, who, at press time, boasted a whopping 922 friends at the University of Illinois and 3,021 at various other colleges.

Once the profile has been filled out, members can add friends either from their own school or from other colleges. Anyone viewing your site can see the names and pictures of all the people you have “friended,” and if you click a friend you will be led to a page with their profile info and their friends and so on.

The result is an intricate social network. Students can also join groups to find people with similar interests. Some groups on the U of I's network are “Illini Basketball has the best team in the nation!,” “I'm a big deal … people know me,” and “I drive faster than you.”

Facebook also allows users to write messages on their friends' walls, which are basically message boards tied to a person's profile.

“I just do it to better communicate with my friends,” says senior Kangway Chuang. “Sure I could e-mail, but why would I do that when I can just Facebook message them, or write on their wall!”

Following the herd

The Facebook phenomenon at Uni emerged last spring when many of the seniors who had already gained admission to college began registering with their new college accounts.

However, some of these graduates hadn't received their college accounts as yet and realized that they could use their Uni e-mail addresses to sign up. Many of the current seniors registered at the end of last year and over the summer in effort to keep in touch with their friends in the Class of 2005.

“They [last year's seniors] were all telling me to join, so I joined!” says Chuang. “And the next thing I knew, I was addicted.”

Some alumni find it annoying that Uni students are registering for the college Facebook prematurely, but most of the Uni students on Facebook don't see any problem.

“I think that as long as you are upfront about being a high school kid … it's OK,” says senior Sara Sligar.

Other students joined by hearing about Facebook through friends. To many, it's just a method of keeping in touch with people they don't see regularly.

“I joined Facebook on a whim really,” says Al-Qadi. “I liked the idea of being able to stay connected to everyone using a method that was not a blog where all your information is out for the entire cyber universe to see. Facebook is semi-private and local, for the most part, unless you friend people from other places.”

Big brother is watching

One issue that arises with the use of Facebook, or any other public network, is privacy. Since there are thousands of students registered on the U of I's branch of Facebook, any student can view any other U of I person's profile, unless they have gone out of their way to make their account private.

Since the majority of people have public profiles, Facebook can be a breeding ground for stalkers, especially at large public universities where so many people are registered.

“A phonebook is stalkeresque by nature,” says Chuang. “It's up to the user to determine how it's used.”

But stalking isn't the only privacy issue that arises. At campuses across the country, school administrators are viewing student profiles — and some are taking action.

At Fisher College near Boston, the president of the Student Government Association was expelled for joining a Facebook group that supported the firing of the campus police sergeant.

According to the Boston Globe, administrators at Brandeis University view student profiles before hiring them for campus jobs.

At Syracuse University, a student was disqualified from a student government race for campaigning on Facebook before the official campaign start date.

Officials at the University of California at Santa Barbara warned students living on campus that they could be punished based on photos (possibly showing underage drinking) attached to their accounts. It begs the question: Should administrators be allowed to take action based on information revealed on Facebook accounts? And what about parents?

Prying eyes

Recently, Uni administrators mentioned students' Facebook accounts when discussing a disciplinary issue. A male senior was confused as to how they knew what was on his account, so he did a search and found out that Director/Principal Kassie Patton had an account and Assistant Director Sue Kovacs had an account on invisible.

Both Patton and Kovacs acknowledge registering for accounts but make clear that they are not seeking out cases to take action on. [Note: See A new weapon for big brother.]

As students reveal secrets on their blogs and Facebook sites, parents have begun to monitor their children's activities via the Internet. A parent of one Uni senior girl regularly reads her daughter's friend's blog to keep track of her daughter's weekend plans and school gossip. At one point, the mother of the girl denied permission to let her daughter attend an unsupervised party at the friend's house.

Open to everyone

Some Uni Facebookers have both a college and high school account, but note that the high school Facebook is boring in comparison to the college version. Since Uni is such a small school, there are fewer social networks within the school and consequently fewer new people to meet.

“I think that Facebook is more important and useful for those friends who live far away,” says Al-Qadi. “You really don't need it for people you see every day.”

For this reason, Uni students as young as freshmen have begun bypassing the high school Facebook for the college version. While some upperclassmen find it annoying to see freshmen on Facebook, most are indifferent.

“I don't think there's any reason to be exclusive to any Uni kids,” says senior Daniel Jacobs. “I mean, we're not in college yet. … I think it's sort of a fad anyway.”