Facebook: the gateway to creating a false identity

Fact: Mark Zuckerberg, a Harvard dropout, purchased the domain, "facebook.com" for $200,000 in 2005

Fact: facebook made a revenue of 300 million dollars in 2008

Fact: facebook is available in over 32 language

Fact: facebook has claimed to have attracted 132.1 million unique visitors in 2008

So, everyone's doing it. Facebook has earned millions of dollars and attracted millions of people. Is it just an innocent way of keeping in touch with friends or are there underlying implications of pouring your personal life into one page?

I registered for a facebook a few years ago, but it took me a long time to realize what that meant. So it began. I was on a sort of public system where I had one page, one big picture, and profile information that my 600 some odd friends could see.

That wasn't it, though. The newsfeed, a listing of what other friends had written to each other, was the best part. Pictures of drunken friends, cell phone numbers, relationship statuses, which parties I was and was not invited to, were all at my fingertips.

By the end of my Senior year in high school, I had found myself checking facebook constantly. At one point, until a teacher saw it - I was so embarrassed, I had to change it - facebook was my homepage. Every time I entered the internet, it was the first thing I saw: a huge picture of my face - the prettiest picture I could find- and a count of my friends, along with public messages, "wall posts" that my friends had written me.

I had censored the pictures that other people tagged me in, and I had made myself sound the way I wanted to on my information box. It gets worse, though. I even caught myself strategically writing wall posts on walls that specific people would find.

I created this world; I built an image of myself for everyone to see. I lived and breathed through a webpage.

"Facebook stalking" became a daily activity. You have a few minutes, perfect. Just enough time to look at 100 pictures of someone you haven't seen in awhile. Picture after picture, clicking through and commenting to yourself or someone else how "much of a slut she is" or how "her boyfriend's so ugly." I've seen this a thousand times and I still participate every once in awhile.

So I stopped myself for the most part. I've come to understand that facebook is alright if you're removed from it. It's a good way to check in with old friends, but don't let it run your life.

I use the message function a lot more. This provides private messages that can be sent between one or more people.

Facebook is good in moderation, but it's deadly in excess.