Earlier this semester, the University community was bombarded by student advertisements for the various positions up for election. Yet in spite of these efforts, voter turnout is consistently low from year to year. A major cause of this phenomenon is apathy, as students fail to see how Student Council or the University Judiciary Committee affects their day-to-day lives. Consequently, candidates tried to make themselves relevant by constructing elaborate programs to benefit the student body. True to form, I present to you my own platform for improving something most certainly everyone uses daily, Facebook. For dramatic effect, I'll order my rules in classic Miss America reverse order. (Those of you who skip to the end, shame on you.)
5b. Honesty on Facebook. Follow my logic: the honor code applies to the students of the University of Virginia. Facebook has a network devoted to representing the students of the University of Virginia. Therefore the U.Va. Honor Code must apply to the U.Va. Facebook network. The honor code prohibits lying, cheating and stealing. This would solve two problems. First, Facebook infractions would provide the Honor Committee with a whole new world of opportunities to explore and would get people to care a lot more about Honor. Secondly, Facebook lists its purpose as "to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet." How are you supposed to learn more about the people you meet if you're reading about false identities and activities?
5a. As a corollary to the above, the Relationship Status joke has been beaten to death. I get it, you really like your sorority sister so you get "married." You're both probably just insecure about the fact that you're not in an actual relationship. The same goes for inventing religions, majors and residences. In general you're not as funny on Facebook as you think you are.
4. Less is more. You remember those signs at the zoo: "Don't feed the animals." It's the same way here. Facebook is a monster; don't feed the monster. It's clear that Facebook is an addiction, and no one can quit, so just don't overdose. Your favorite music is just that, your all-time faves, not every artist you have ever listened to. Same thing goes for interests. I'm going to take a wild guess that everyone likes hanging out with friends, laughing, napping and the beach. As for pictures, I like good photography -- cool lighting, shadows, angles and interesting subject matter. But really how many blurry, dark pictures of a group of people do you need? In life and on Facebook, brevity, terseness, concision and succinctness are favored over verbosity.
3. No complaining about Facebook. First, there was the outrage about including high school networks. Then there was the outrage over the news feed. Then users complained about not having enough variety on Facebook. So the system's administrators added applications (violating rule number 4, by the way). Then, there came the backlash against all the notifications from the applications users added. You're clearly still going to use Facebook no matter what form it takes, so can you just skip the middle step and not complain about it while you adjust?
2. Facebook is not for everyone. While a networking site, it is a fun networking site for your friends, not a cutthroat business networking experiment to include everyone and maximize profits. It should have been for college students only, but it's too late to revoke the privilege from high school students. But we have to draw the line there: no middle schoolers, no adults. It's a slippery slope. If we don't take a stand now, your Facebook account will be issued to you at birth by the government and there will be a console for it on your tombstone.
1. Never take Facebook seriously. Far too much drama has arisen from this simple little concept invented by Al Gore. It isn't real. These are virtual representations of ourselves. Yet some people think if a tree falls in a forest and nobody talks about it on Facebook, it doesn't make a sound. Facebook is a joke, kind of like something else ...
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