Recently Facebook underwent a makeover, and everyone is talking about it. Anyone who hasn’t been living under a rock knows about it and has either praised it or complained about it for what seems like an inordinate amount of time.
The new Facebook seems to come up in almost every conversation – people are either obsessed with the new one or obsessed with finding a way to bring the old one back.
When did students let Facebook become such a substantial part of their lives?
When people are changing their statuses every hour, looking through hundreds of photo albums and uploading countless bumper stickers, it’s time to say enough.
Some students spend hours on Facebook a day and then can’t find time to study. For some, it is so much a part of daily routines, productive things can’t be accomplished when such a large distraction is within reach.
But students need to exercise some self-control. Facebook is fun and is a good way of keeping in touch with others, but it should not consume peoples’ lives.
There are actual things going on in the world outside of the little box that sits on your desk.
Every student should know about the history-making presidential election. For the first time ever, a black man is running for the presidency and a woman is running on a Republican presidential ticket.
While this is an exciting time for America, students are still surfing Facebook constantly. Most are more concerned about Facebook relationship statuses than anything Senators Barack Obama or John McCain have to say about the future of this country.
We are also involved in two wars right now. And as some college-age students sit on Facebook reading their friends’ walls, there are people the same age who are dying on the battlefields. We don’t expect Bradley students to drop out of school and enlist, but we encourage them to acknowledge what’s going on in the world outside Facebook.
The state of the economy is something that will actually personally affect a large number of students come graduation. Unemployment is through the roof and the cost of living keeps growing.
But if it isn’t on Facebook, don’t count on any students to know about it.
So we encourage students to prove us wrong. Get off Facebook and go do something. Help someone. Tutor someone. Read a book. Read the news. Vote. Go for a run. Do your homework. Volunteer.
Do anything that involves logging off Facebook and logging into the real world.
