It is rather alarming how often Facebook.com sneaks into everyday conversation. “Oh my God, you will never guess who requested me as a friend,” to “Did you see what he wrote on her wall?” Little exchanges prove that whether they admit it or not, Facebook is part of college students’ daily routines. The newest update to Facebook, however, has caused an uproar among student bodies.
Facebook’s News Feed has bombarded innocent Facebookers with pointless “news” documenting every action of network friends, leaving Facebook a mess of pointless updates to wade through. Who cares if Joe Schmoe added “Braveheart” as a favorite movie? I haven’t talked to him since eighth grade anyway. Not to mention the stalker level upgrade – at least before, the layers of Facebook masked its stalker-esque quality. Now Facebook has been stripped down to shamelessly expose every wall post, friend update, breakup, etc.
Stefan Pescatore of the University of New Hampshire posted: “Thanks Facebook News Feed … now I’m reluctant to enjoy your wonderful service in fear of having my every move blown up and related to every person on the Internet. I wonder who thought this was a good idea.”
Apparently, you can now use privacy settings to limit what information about you is spread across Facebook, but not everything is accounted for. Most students just want the feeds to disappear all together. The number of Facebook groups established in protest of the News Feed is overwhelming. Their names ranging from “Students Against Facebook News Feed: Official Petition to Facebook” to “Dear Facebook, Chill the F— Out!”
I mean, when Facebook added the photo album feature, we were happy – it was a fun new way to procrastinate. We spent hours uploading pictures, coming up with clever little captions and even more time clicking through friends’ albums, analyzing just how drunk we looked at The Palms at 4:30 a.m. last Saturday.
The friend detail addition was fun, considering it mainly served as an outlet for humorous connections with questionable validity. Facebook hinted at taking a turn for the worst when it added high schools to the network. Then, of course, came the News Feed. It took the thrill out of the hunt. If every move someone makes is spelled out for us, how can we investigate and feel like we have discovered some good gossip? And we want to selectively stalk, right? Why sift through all the Joe Schmoes when we really just want to see if our high school boyfriends have any recent pictures exposing their college beer guts?
Mark Zuckerberg, creator of Facebook, left an open letter on the Facebook homepage a few days ago in response to the anti-News Feed build up. It seems he missed the point; he apologized only for setting up privacy controls poorly and apparently does not plan on getting rid of the feeds.
If only there was an option to hide the feeds if you don’t want to deal with the mess of hardly newsworthy updates. The fact that friends are ordered by recently updated profiles seems to be enough of a news feed for me.
The Opinion Poll in last week’s Maroon asked what students thought of Facebook’s new features. All five students featured reacted negatively. The strongest unfavorable remarks were: “Scary as hell. I’m boycotting it.” and “Big thumbs down.”
The only positive reaction I have heard was from a friend who exclaimed, “It is so much easier to keep tabs on my boyfriend now.” Well, I’m sure her boyfriend isn’t so thrilled.
Facebook has gone too far. It is just creepy now. Wake up, Mark Zuckerberg! Eradicate the feed! At least let us pretend Facebook is simply a social network connecting us to our friends and peers, rather than an online stalking tool.
Ali Ryan is a communication senior from Lexington, Mass.