Facebook: After The College Years

During my Junior year of school, something was introduced that would change the world.  A free interactive social site that would allow friends to interact, post pictures, join groups blah blah blah.

I'm not going to make this post about how Facebook works, because I assume you know essentially how it works.

If you're reading this, there's a 95% chance your doing so because you linked to it from my Facebook feed.

Instead I will be addressing the vast change that has occurred in Facebook as I've matured and Facebook opened it's doors to the people that exist beyond college life.

Part 1.  What Facebook Was Initially.

Lets not get it twisted.  Facebook was used initially as a way to connect with the people you partied with.  I don't know how this could be disputed in any real way.  Almost every single early picture in any Facebook album upon it's inception involves alcohol.  The reason is obvious.  It debuted as a College internet device.  This exclusivity, which Zuckerberg seemed to be very much for in it's early incarnations was in part what drove the social website.  Yes there were other uses, keeping up with classmates or showing off your vacation but lets be real.  Facebook was used initially to help you figure out who you were hanging out with at school, and more specifically what you were doing when you weren't studying at school. 

And college students party when they aren't studying. 

We (as College students) had a specific audience of peers that we wanted to entertain and impress upon our values of fun, sexiness, rage, and whatever else we thought was cool.  Before Facebook, there was AOL Instant Messenger, which was actually similar in that you could make a profile, put quotes, song lyrics and links to whatever.  And you knew that only a few select people that you knew and chose could access it.  But Facebook took that model and improved upon it 10 fold.  Though it's chat feature would be a little bit farther away and AIM existed simultaneously for a while, today AIM is obsolete.

Initially in college we used Facebook to tell people who we were and we did it unapologetically.  Facebook was nothing if not absolute connection with another person's immediate psyche. We would update about breakups, beginning relationships, if we got a job or if we got wasted (which was the most likely thing to update about)  In someways that is still the true, but the rules began to change sometime after the whole world got their hands on the program.

Part 2.  Your Parents Want to Be Your Friend.

This is bullshit.

Being part of the initial Facebook experiment that wanted to use this website to show our peers our nightlife, our fun life, this is about as sacrilegious as you can get.

In sociology classes (or maybe psych, my memory is a bit fuzzy now)  we learn about the different roles we play given certain circumstances.  We act differently in front of our friends versus in front of our bosses.  We act differently with strangers than we do with family.  We maintain that we are the same person through out, yet our actions differ depending on who we are with.  It's fine.  It's natural.

That wall was broken to some degree with this new development.  There is a bit of a social impasse with Facebook's 'friending' system.  While people whom you may consider to be close or 'friends' to say that they aren't your 'Facebook friends' creates a system where you are explicitly say 'you are not close enough that I trust you to see what I've done in college.'

In other words....

I do not want my Mom to see pictures of me getting fucked up with my best friends.  I don't want my future boss to see pictures of me getting shit faced or high when I was just trying to have a good time.  That time was a time I do want to remember, but not a time I want to share with every single family member or work contact I may possibly have.  Yes, you are a family member.  Yes you may be a work contact.  But that does not mean I want to share those experiences from my youth, though I myself may want to remember them.  I'm not ashamed of them, but I don't think you would understand them and I absolutely think you will hold them against me.

Part 3:  Acceptance Into The System

Now we have it figured out.  Have we changed?  Have we matured?  That is debatable.  But we have managed to work around the Facebook system.  We know that at any point in time, we can be sought out via the Facebook network and some defenses are there for those that feel that they need them.  Girls often do not post their last name and instead use a middle name.  There are nicknames.  Settings are set to Private (though there are still loopholes that a dedicated stalker COULD work around).

As we give in and become Facebook friends with our bosses and Family we now edit and are careful about what we broadcast.  Our language changes to reflect it.  The pictures that we tag ourselves become self monitored.  We look to presentable to ALL audiences and not just the our college peers.  This difference is monumental.

The pictures of our days in school are now protected or gone altogether.  Sadly the whole reason I initially used Facebook is gone.  No longer will you get an honest view of my personal psyche, but rather one that is edited to appeal to everyone.  There will be few (and in the time to come, probably fewer) pictures of me being anything other than sober and straight laced. 

I still use Facebook to give my friends and contacts an accurate portrait of how I feel, but no longer do I use it an effort to communicate directly to my college peers.  That time is gone.

This is not true of everyone though.

Part 4:  F*** it.  You're Still In College

 I really can't imagine College without Facebook, going over the incredible pictures of my past, they STILL define me.  I can't imagine not having my status updates over incredibly stupid things.  The parties, the relationships I did and did not have.  The fact that I was willing to open myself up and be as vulnerable as possible to people who were going through the exact same things as I was made helped give me the strength to persevere through a challenging time both academically and socially.

I'm not saying go get smashed every night.  I'm not saying go act reckless and without respect to others.  But I am saying that you should not be scared to make mistakes and make them publicly.  They help keep you from making them in the future.

Take pictures.  Say funny shit.  It is a universal truth that time can't come back and the only thing we will be left with is the memories that we make.

Don't be scared to make them.