I have a stalking problem.
Stalking used to be the kind of word you didn't want associated with yourself. Illegal, almost as dirty as "pedophile" and a few notches above "obsessive," it was hardly a word with positive connotations. But now it's 2008, and to be a stalker is just to be a part of the online community that is college.
I stalk all the time. You do too, sketchy guy next to me at Van Pelt who's been clicking through that Theta's photos for almost an hour. You've probably got a million excuses: it's just a way to procrastinate, to flirt (or poke), to vet potential pledges, friends and now not-so-random hook-ups. And besides, why else would she be putting up five albums a week if she didn't want strangers to look at them?
It started out slow, like when you only got high on the weekends. But now weekends start on Thursday. And end on Wednesday. Today you've already checked your News Feed three or four times, and it's noon. Your stalking has spread like mono - at first you just looked up people you actually knew, but now it's a neat way to investigate total strangers with whom you share nothing, save a network and a total disregard for privacy. We become so comfortable with our Facebook "friendships" that we forget something pretty basic: We aren't really friends. The stalking borders on obscene narcissism -- we not only stalk, but we anticipate being stalked, and that's why we spend so much time building a profile-worthy version of ourselves. Our fake selves make fake friends. in fact, hundreds of fake friends, about whom we know way too much.
When we weren't looking, Facebook snuck into our culture and decided to stick around. Current seniors were the first to test out this seemingly less skeevy alternative to MySpace; the class of 2011 is so fluent we started friending each other two Decembers ago.
The commonplace practice of stalking isn't the site's only disconcerting side effect. "Tag me!" has slipped into the vernacular and refuses to leave. It's like a cockroach in the Quad; you don't like it anymore than your roommate, but it's both of your faults that it's there and there is no killing that sucker. Girls shout this at parties whenever a flash goes off, already imagining their intoxicated poses on the web. It's creepy how we've inadvertently turned the act of having fun into a lame attempt at remembering and advertising it, as if the photo is more important than the reality it captures.
Maybe we should have seen this coming. After all, we are the generation that would rather be guitar heroes than musicians and Urban-wearing hipsters instead of actual individuals. It's a disturbing trend: If all we want is to be real, why do we so adamantly pursue all things fake?
This isn't to say there's nothing redemptive about the site. It's saved countless best friends from forgetting birthdays, and event pages are way more environmentally-friendly than fliers. But technology is always a double-edged sword and Facebook is no exception.
All we need is balance, because if we keep using Facebook for everything, we'll be missing out on reality. And as those of us who have braved the dark emptiness of a computer-less room know, poking is definitely more fun in person.
