"He's got a new GF!?"

I have a pretty boring morning routine. I hear my alarm go off on my iPhone (“Pretty Young Thing” by MJ, if you must know) continue to hit snooze until I only give myself twenty minutes to get ready. Then the routine:

-          Stretch. Rub face seven times.
-          Tear out of bed when I realize that I’m already running thirty minutes late.
-          Get in shower. Shampoo. Condition. Etc.
-          Dry off, get dressed, brush teeth, make goofy faces at myself in the mirror.
-          Run upstairs, notice that I have an extra five minutes.
-          Check Facebook.

Yes, Facebook is usually a part of my morning routine. Sometimes even taking precedent over a nutritious breakfast. Sad, but true.

You log in and scroll through Newsfeed, which usually goes a little something like this: status updates from “kind-of” friends, photos posted from family vacations that you don’t care about, “top 5 favorite Miley Cyrus songs” (she even has 5 songs?), event notification for a band you’ve never heard of, “What’s my Ghetto Name,” more status updates, ex-boyfriend is no longer listed as single, status upd… WAIT WHAT?!

Scroll back up in a panic, hoping you misread. Nope. We have confirmation: That stupid little pink heart is practically jumping off the screen paired with your recent ex, boyfriend or crush’s name. Maybe you already knew they were in a relationship, maybe you had no idea, maybe they broke up with you via Facebook, maybe you went out on a few dates and you thought things were going places but now they are in a relationship with someone who is NOT you.

Whatever the case is, this relationship update is a slap in the face…book. Read More »

Oh. Em. Gee. Twitter is down today.

I click on that cute little blue “t” in my favorites and nothing happens.  Nothing!  That means no one will know what I’m eating for lunch.  It’s a pbj, people!  It’s delicious and now my recessionista awesomeness will go completely unnoticed by my friends.  I could always IM them and let them know of my awesome sandwich making skills, but that’s just creepy.

I seriously don’t know how to function.  Although I’m a relatively new recruit, Twitter has become a part of my daily online ritual: update Facebook, check e-mail, and tweet. Repeat. Today this routine was destroyed.  I thought I’d be OK with just using Facebook for my hourly updates, but even that isn’t working!  I’m melting down. Shaking. I don’t know what to do.  I have no idea whether my friends have changed their relationships or which 1950’s movie star they are…I’m so disconnected!

In all seriousness, I’m surprised at how much this affects my life.  I’m anxious, checking back with Twitter and Facebook every few minutes.  I feel like I’m almost missing a limb (and not a pinkie toe, I’m talking about a really serious limb…like my head).  I’m hoping that both these sites are back up by the end of today, otherwise who knows what chaos will ensue?

Not that anyone will know, because Twitter is down and we can’t read news tweets.  Woe is a world without social networking websites!

People can learn a lot about you from your Facebook profile. By considering your favorite movies, pictures, quotes and the things other people write on your wall, it is quite easy to get a good idea of who you are as a person. And knowing that, many of us are extremely careful about what we throw on there.

And I’m not talking about taking down all those drunk pictures from the Jell-O wrestling tournament so you can get that job with the government you’ve been coveting. I’m talking about leaving those up to show anyone and everyone who is looking that you are one cool girl who happens to enjoy wrestling in gelatin.

Your Facebook picture is especially important. It’s the first thing people see when they look you up, not to mention the fact that it comes up next to every wall post, Facebook message, chat, update, etc., that you do on that damn website. Naturally, you are going to put a lot of thought into your photo of choice. It needs to be a good representation of who you are, be it an artist, a class clown, or any other type of person.

I spend a lot of time on Facebook (is there a 12 step program out there?!) and I’ve noticed that of the 38 million people using the site worldwide, there only 6 basic types of photos that people post on their profile: Read More »

[Life isn’t black and white. As much as we wish we simply loved or hated things, there is often that whole annoying gray area in the middle. Like, we hate getting up for early morning classes, but we love being done by 11. Or, we love how Spanx make us look, but hate how sweaty we get putting them on... Damn you, gray area; you make decision-making that much more complicated!

There are so many difficult choices in life (do we love or hate high heels??), so we thought we’d sort through ‘em right here. Every week we will discuss another issue we are torn up about. Let us know your thoughts in the comments section!]

So, we now all know what Twitter is. I can guarantee that you either Twitter yourself, have a friend who Twitters, or know a celebrity that Twitters (and creepily internet-stalk them).

Since its launch in 2006, Twitter has gained roughly 5 million users, coming in 3rd in the social network sites, with 2nd going to MySpace and 1st place to Facebook. It’s actually kind of like the status updates on Facebook, without all the wall posts and bumper stickers (and those annoying pokes). But sometimes I do miss a good laugh at a not-so-attractive FB picture (*untagging now), and a friendly poke now and then isn’t so bad. So Twitter: I’m torn. Read More »

“It’s not official unless it’s on Facebook.”

You know the phrase is true. Did you hook up with a new boyfriend lately? Get a new job? Start grad school? Yeah, you probably updated your Facebook to let everyone know about it. Facebook has acquired a terrifically powerful role in our culture, one which legitimizes every facet of our lives.

As much as passing the bar exam officially makes you an attorney, updating your relationship status officially makes you one-half of the new “It” couple in your social network. Bring on the wall-comments and congratulations! But what about when Facebook users begin posting personal details that don’t merit digital high-fives?

Such is the case with a new trend in Facebook groups that actually promote such eating disorders as anorexia nervosa and bulemia nervosa. Think about your average, “Hell Yeah I Went To Public School!” group and channel all of that enthusiasm towards the idea of starving yourself. Imagine scrolling through a list of your friend’s groups and finding one like “Ana Boot Camp” (which has recently been disabled by the Facebook administration) which attracts users who view anorexia as a fitness goal, not an eating disorder. They’ve even co-opted the name “anorexia” to just “Ana,” as a way of reinforcing the idea of anorexia positively. Members of “pro-Ana” groups collaborate on starvation plans and look to one another for “thinspiration.” Read More »

Last night, I pulled up to a house I have a million times before, anxiously anticipating hanging out with my two best friends ever . You know the kind of friends I mean: We had sleepovers complete with Spice Girls’ dance parties in middle school as we sported our bell bottoms & Skechers, played spin the bottle in junior high with cute, spiky-haired 8th grade boys who listened to NOFX, and experienced a whole plethora of good/illegal/potentially lethal times in high school. These girls knew me (and stayed my friend) when I saw CREED in concert. Enough said.

So, i walked in to see my two best friends, paired up in beer pong against the dude who owned the house and someone I’ll call M. When we first met sophomore year of high school, I was fascinated by M. She was ridiculously cool, had good taste in music & the most unique style I’d ever seen. We became instant friends and I thought she would be a perfect addition to the friendship triangle. Hell, If she liked Britney Spears and gangster rap as much as we did, she was IN.

So, I brought her around a few times, giving her a chance to “test the waters” of our crazy group of friends. I was excited when she was able to hold her own in conversations. I was pretty happy (albeit, a little confused) when she started to use the nicknames we made up for each other at recess when addressing us in conversation. I loved that I could borrow her super-cute clothes. And then, something I should have totally seen coming but didn’t happened.

She stole my friends. Read More »

“Heyyyyyy!!!! Ohmygosh we haven’t talked in ages!!!! How have you been? You look like you’re doing great. WE should totally get together sometime!”

We all have those friends on Facebook. People that we knew ten years ago and don’t talk to anymore. Except for on Facebook.

I have plenty of friends like that. And I even friend requested some of them.

Of course, those friend requests were mostly because they were the people that made my middle school years hell, and I like to stalk them and silently gloat over how much cooler my life is than theirs.

But some of them were sparked by a genuine desire to see how they were doing and what kind of people they had turned into.

So how does this whole reconnecting thing work, especially on the internet, and especially if one of the two parties may not be exactly thrilled at the idea of sitting across from their grade school buddy whom they haven’t seen since 1999? Something about the cyberdistance makes the idea of rekindling a friendship seem more approachable over Facebook (or Myspace, as the case may be). If your old classmate doesn’t feel like answering you, it’s a lot easier to not take it personally when all you’ve done is send a digital message instead of digging out an old phone number and calling out of the blue. Read More »

Most of the time, social networking sites are only discussed when devious, nasty, and vicious things occur. For instance, many parents have decried places like YouTube, and its variants, to be “evil,” and an infernal, virtual breeding ground that prey on teens’ desire for instant “web-celebrity” status – a type of immediate stardom in which individuals will even beat up others just to enjoy 15 minutes of fame.

There was the case in 2007 and most recently in 2008, in which teen girls were lured to a home and then beaten – all of it caught on camera. Indeed, it is easy to conclude that the transferal of information via the Internet is pernicious in so many ways.

That’s why this story about James Karl Buck is particularly refreshing, and points to the ways in which social networking sites can be useful in serious situations. Buck is a graduate student at the University of California-Berkeley. On April 10th, he was arrested in Egypt when covering an anti-government protest as a student reporter.

Buck had the wherewithal to text just one word – “Arrested” – on Twitter as soon as he was apprehended. Read More »

I’m in a fight with Facebook. First they opened the doors to every crazy person on the planet/your mom. Then they started telling you everything your “friends” were doing. Then they started recommending friends to you, even though you would already have those people as friends if you wanted to.

And now those crazy boys at Facebook are stirring the pot again. This time with Facebook chat. Read More »

I have a headache, and believe me, I’m not one for headaches.

Fortunately this ailment is of the metaphorical sort, although admittedly it does make me want to bash my head against a brick wall. Repeatedly.

I’m talking about social networking: MySpace, Bebo, Facebook, Faceparty, Sitonmybook, Myfacebookspaceparty…all right, so the last couple I made up, but it wouldn’t surprise me if next week they’re reality.

The truth is that these websites are addictive. Experts on the subject (if such a person can really exist) claim that young people are spending more time multi-tasking online than they are reading, exercising and – in some cases – sleeping.

It doesn’t take an expert to uncover the reasoning behind this either: these are more than websites. They are interactive communities, virtual cities. A place to meet new people, rediscover old friends, nosey into other peoples lives and, most importantly, to sell yourself. Read More »