Peter Applebome's Dec. 1 New York Times article, "On Campus, Hanging Out by Logging On," examined Princeton students' love affair with Thefacebook.com. And we're not alone – the site is now "the most popular way to either network or waste time for a million college students at around 300 colleges." The site's ubiquity, however, raises several more serious concerns that students, in their excitement over this new form of interaction, tend to ignore.
A Thefacebook.com profile is often an exercise in openness. No topic seems to be taboo. While sharing your favorite books or movies is the stuff of getting-to-know-you small talk, online students wax poetic on matters from relationship status to drinking habits. Add quotes and photographs — sometimes lacking clothes, sometimes sobriety, sometimes both — and the self-disclosure is complete. There are several reasons why Thefacebook.com may make students so forthcoming in compiling their profiles. For some it is the allure of being the star, the phenomenon of reality TV in which the viewer renders the viewed person's life exceptional through the very act of observation. For others, the assumption that all Thefacebook.com members are somehow peers of the profiler generates a sort of automatic intimacy. In either case, students often disclose more personal information in Thefacebook.com postings than they would perhaps feel comfortable revealing in face-to-face interactions.
This uncensored openness may have longer-lasting, unforeseen consequences. Sparse evidence contradicts Clinton's claim that he didn't inhale and few records remain of Bush's partying habits. Thousands, however, could bear witness to a Thefacebook.com profile declaration of underage drinking or drug abuse, and no one knows how long such a page remains archived. The willingness to reveal all in Thefacebook.com profiles could result in an entire generation made ineligible for political office. Worse, the federal government might access these pages as part of background checks. The admission of drug use could therefore dash hopes for government jobs and federally-funded scholarships.
Posting cell phone numbers, screen names, birthdates, dorm phone numbers and addresses can also create problems. While the ability to look up these items may be useful to friend who's lost your information, they also allow any Thefacebook.com user to locate you at will, whether you want him to or not. The Princeton website's university directory denies access to student housing information to off-campus computing locations, and for good reason. If all those with Internet connections could access our numbers we'd find ourselves barraged with all sorts of unwanted solicitation, from telemarketers to prospective students looking for an edge. More dangerously, we would also be vulnerable to identity theft. Will the outsiders that succeed in accessing Thefacebook.com all have the academic motives of New York Times columnists? Can we trust the intentions even of "legitimate" Thefacebook.com users? At 300 member schools and counting, the sense of community that Thefacebook.com affords is misleading. Students may be lulled by this seeming security into disclosing information that puts them at risk.
Perhaps the most immediate challenge to the false sense of privacy Thefacebook.com engenders is the fact that university faculty and staff can access the site. He who boasts of being a wild child has likely never considered that a professor might access his profile. Requesting extensions becomes tricky when you've plead illness but your profile plainly states you were out partying. Although most professors have not yet discovered the joys of the Thefacebook.com, it's only a matter of time given the current media hype. Parents may also join the trend, to the chagrin of students who thought they'd finally moved out.
The success of Thefacebook.com demonstrates college students' profound faith in the Internet and fascination with new technologies. Thefacebook.com is used to keep up with old friends and make new ones, to find others and to define oneself. This ability, however, has its price. Thefacebook.com may decrease the risk of face-to-face embarrassment, but it's by no means risk-free. Emily Stolzenberg is a sophomore from Morgantown, W. Va. She can be reached at estolzen@princeton.edu.
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