Wow, I haven't updated in ages and now probably isn't the best time with finals about to pull me within the circles of hell... But meh, there are few things on my mind worth mentioning so here we go. I’ll try and make a “normal” post at some point but those are just plain boring to write at times.

Clare, you and Lauren are slightly misguided in you're assertions that thefacebook/ AIM/ ipods/ technology in general are all ruining our lives. Allow me to explain. You're spot on about the value of face to face interactions. There is nothing else like it and real life human interaction is surely indispensable. But let’s not point out proverbial fingers at the wrong culprit...

"The problem with the facebook is that the purpose of dating is to get to know someone."

I don't buy it, dear. One of the MANY purposes of dating is to get to know someone but this is clearly not a problem with the facebook. Perhaps you have too much faith in the concise lists of interests, or maybe our ideas about dating are very different. I simply cannot blame any social degradation among college students on thefacebook itself. As its familiar blue homepage declares proudly, "The Facebook is an online directory that connects people through social networks at schools" and it does, very well in fact. I've found people in places that I thought I had lost contact with forever. Thanks to those clever programmers behind the book of face (and the internet, of course) I've rekindled old friendships, made some very valuable professional connections and can easily stay in touch with people scattered all over the country. Now that we have the official def. of what thefacebook is, let’s clarify what it's intended uses are. Once again, the sparse homepage offers us a WEALTH of information.

"You can use Facebook to:

• Look up people at your school.
• See how people know each other.
• Find people in your classes and groups. "

Amazing. Of course the above list could be summed up pessimistically by stating simply that:

You can use Facebook to:

• Stalk the HELL out of people.

Both characterizations are honest and true to the functionality of facebook, but they lead us to the same conclusion. Facebook is a TOOL that you may use for both good and evil. That's right, EVIL. Which, based on your claim that facebook is ruining our lives, leads me to think that the majority of people on thefacebook are making very poor or even evil use of it.

Stalking certainly isn't where this evil stops. By comparison facebook stalking is one of the more (and often completely) harmless uses. You alluded to a host of other destructive behaviors that people, consciously or not, are taking part in. Top of the list: screening others as potential mates based on their profiles. Facebook is NOT a dating service. No matter how much crap you put on that page it's still JUST a single webpage containing usually dry, superficial data about yourself. Yet you insist,

"The facebook allows you to screen your dates before they even happen, and if you don't like one little thing about the other person's facebook profile, you don't even ask him/her out."

Who DOES this?!? How horribly vapid and shallow is it to NEVER go on a date with someone because you read a single page about them and made the final "judgment" call. You clearly indicate the shortcomings of facebook as a dating tool; the ambiguity, inaccurate or misleading information, insignificance of the provided details, and of course there's no escape from being "socially retarded". I sincerely agree with your concerns, but they do not lead us to the conclusion that facebook is ruining our lives. The fact remains that the facebook is not meant for streamlining dating in such a detestable fashion, even if people insist on doing it anyway. Perhaps, instead of blaming the facebook, we should get to the root of the problem: Moronic and empty-headed individuals who misuse technology and feel that the only substance of a person can be condensed into HTML format and hyperlinks.

We have the solution, of course. It is, undeniably, real life, blood, sweat and tears, face to face human contact. With that said, everybody go join the facebook group "let's bring back the dying art of conversation!" It has a depressingly small membership (currently at 16 flesh and blood people)

Maybe the great book of face can save us from ourselves.

Note: AIM and ipods are separate and distinct technological phenomena that warrant their own critiques which I simply do not have time to write at the moment.

And a smattering of lyics...

I don't know what it is
But you got to do it
I don't know where to go
But you got to be there
I don't know where to fall
But I know that its comfortable where
I don't know where it is