Page 7 Eve = The: Lion S Bye On "Outs Such 31; 2010 OE iG eh érition He Said The Facebook Face-Off By Samantha Garcia - Lion's Eye Staff Writer - sng508@psu.edu By daniel j. taylor - Lions Eye Editorial Editor - djt5 036@psu.edu Facebook is ruining our chil- dren! Theydon’tplay outsideanymore, they don’t do their homework any- more, and all those fan pages that they follow—what’s up with that? Face- book is ruining our children. ..isn’t it? In a more distant time Fa- cebook would’ve been bad news. I’m talking about back when. people walked to their neighbors’ houses for a chat, spent social time on porches, and wrote thoughtful letters to those from whom they were separated. In a time like that, things would’ve been differ- ent. Facebook would’ve been respon- sible for the breakdown of those mean- ingful exchanges in a serious way. Of course some will scream, “That’s what it’s doing to us right now,” and it’s true that we zone out on pixilated Farmville pigs and pe- ruse the pictures of long-forgotten high school English classmates, while the hours tick, tick, and tick away. Unfortunately, though, we can’t blame Facebook for our current state. Facebook, for some, repre- sents the degradation of society, par- ticularly in regard to interpersonal re- lationships and communication. Even long Facebook posts rarely, 1 find, exceed fifteen or twenty words—they are momentary, spur-of-the-moment, fleeting forms of communication, and so I can see why those worried about the hypnotic lure of the inter- net are showing concern. I must ask, however, is it the fault of Facebook that we can spend two hours stick- ing our noses into a virtual fish tank and only ten minutes reading a book? My answer—the answer— is a strong no! Let’s not fall into the trap of blaming a blue-and-white communication platform for the is- sues befalling mankind. Let’s blame only ourselves. After all, we’ve been this way for quite a while, haven’t we? I'd reckon it’s the minority of us who can remember family (even as late as one generation ago) pen- ning letters. Granted, face-to-face communication isn’t completely dead, but still it is foolish to conjure up the notion that Facebook is even partially to blame. We must be sure to get one thing straight: we did not adapt ourselves to fit the evil applica- tions of Facebook; rather, we created it to fit us. If Facebook is bad, then we’re worse for populating it with millions of our “likes” and gripes. . DAISY FRIED is the author of two books of poetry, My Brother is Getting Arrested Again, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and She Didn't Mean to Do It, which won the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize. She has received Guggenheim, Hodder and Pew Fellowships, a Pushcart Prize, the Cohen Award from Ploughshares, and the Editor's Prize for a Feature Article from Poetry magazine, for her essay “Sing God-Awful Muse,” about reading Paradise Lost and breastfeeding. Her poems have been published recently in The Nation, New Republic, Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, Poetry and The Threepenny Review. She reviews poetry for The New York Times 14" Penn State Brandywine LitapaLooZa LITERARY FESTIVAL Tuesday, April 6, 2010 11:30 to 1:00 + * in the Tomezsko Classroom Building Lounge FEATURING POET Daisy Fried We anticipate the campus literary magazine, Penn in Hand, will be distributed at the event. The Lip.p*ro0Za Festival invites one and all to PARTICIPATE in the "OPEN MIKE" READING. Bring your own creative works and plan to read, recite, chant, narrate, rap, sing, croon, intone, declaim! Or just come to cheer and stomp for our guest readers and your friends. One cannot che erfully eat poetry or prose: there will be refreshments. Sponsored by Penn in Hand with the English Department | ‘SAF 4 and Poetry, teaches creative writing at Villanova University, Philadelphia. | lives in and APRIL IS NATIONAL POETRY MONTH She Said Is Facebook hurting out gen- eration? It’s not exactly helping our generation. - Facebook is just anoth- er avenue for Middle School, High School, and College Students to get into trouble. This is the problem with every social networking site that is the “latest and greatest.” Remember Myspace? Yeah, that’s still around, but now Facebook is “IN.” Forget about it, if you don’t have Facebook than you are living under a rock. But why is Facebook so neces- sary if it is necessary at all? There are people that see it both ways. Like Diana P, “Facebook is necessary if you don’t get to see people far away as often as you’d like,” but on the flip side she says, “It’s not because people get stu- pid on here with spam-and other things that I don’t have interest in.” Diana makes a good point, and some those of an older generation feel this way about Facebook. It’s just a means of commu- nication on one side, and for others it’s a gaming site and spamming site. Now even corporations such as Tide Laun- dry Detergent are on Facebook now. Michael James Hart, of PSU Altoona says, “Facebook is a neces- sary evil because almost everybody has one. For some people it’s an addic- tion, sooner or later there is going to be a ‘Facebook Anonymous.” Myspace was just as bad, but with Facebook you can get a lot more personal. It also hin- ders people’s ‘people skills’ because you can meet people on Facebook, rather than meeting them in person.” Hart is right in many ways, but he is leaving some things out. Prob- ® © 6 © 6 © © 6 6 oo oo oo ALLSHORT SLEEVE : ALLCOLORS ably the biggest problem with Face- book is the fact that people are getting into trouble without even realizing it. For example, in 2008 Conestoga High School’s Cheerleading squad decided to have a party in which much un- derage drinking went on. One of the cheerleaders had a camera, so in a mat- ter of days, pictures from the party, along with the alcohol, ended up on Facebook. Well wouldn’t you know that a mom of one of the cheerleaders got a hold of these digital documents and reported them to the school. The result? The cheerleading squad was replaced with back ups, and all the girls in the pictures were suspended from cheerleading for several weeks. Not only can schools look at Fa- cebook, as most college students know, but potential employers have access to the information that people post online, not just Facebook. And believe it or not, once you “delete” a picture that is “in- criminating,” it is not actually gone. It can still be found using certain websites that keep track of web postings dating back to the late 90’s. So even though you can’t find that picture of you at that party with a red cup in your hand when you were 19 online, that doesn’t mean someone else can’t find it, and chances are they can, and they will. Facebook is a dangerous “tool” that our genera- tion uses way too casually and without any consideration for the damage that it can do you one’s reputation and career. bl sds wd 5 2%. Jin eo LJ § i sont Waid
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers