Facebook: A Place for Drama

By: Gizzo, Alaina
Posted In: Opinion

You go to this website multiple times a day, and before you log in you see, “Facebook: A place for friends.” Sometimes when I catch this, I giggle to myself. Is it really? It seems to be more like “Facebook: A vulnerable place where your enemies can harass you” or “Facebook: A place to upload pictures of every party you’ve ever been to.”

I recall first creating a Facebook account the summer before my freshman year at Salve. It promised superior online networking capabilities. With a constant news feed that illustrates precisely what all of your “friends” are doing and exactly when, I was skeptical at first. In a matter of months I discovered the true melodramatic potential of Facebook.

Thanks to Facebook, we see who befriends whom, and whether we like it or not, we judge them based on it. Relationships are no longer official until it appears on your “info” tab, when Facebook users can click on the blue hyperlink of your significant other’s page. Breakups are completely public, lending users to comments from that girl that you talked to once in your politics class, who now feels the need to reassure you that you never needed him anyway.

We all get annoyed with Facebook on varied levels, but very few can part from it. So many users keep their accounts and somehow manage to tolerate 20 different invites to join Farmville or Mafia Wars in a single day or constant group invites that beg you to petition for just about any cause in existence.

Why do we maintain this torture? Perhaps it seems like a small price to pay for a solid mode of maintaining contact with people all over the globe simultaneously. It’s easy to admit that Facebook makes it much less difficult to track down friends who might typically be difficult to keep in contact with.

But is this convenience worth many of Facebook’s vices? Users are able to tolerate some things about the website, but what about the people who use it? Fights with friends can turn ugly, and public, very quickly. Most current college students have either experienced or witnessed the passive aggressive (or maybe just downright hostile) status update, the wall post altercation or the emotionally-inspired Facebook de-friending. Facebook not only intensifies petty drama, but publicizes it for users to see.

All in all, besides being a distraction to college students nationwide, Facebook is a major source of internet bullying. Luckily, Facebook combated some of this issue with specific privacy settings. However, users must still tolerate certain annoyances in exchange for such useful online networking.