Kyla Gardner:

I spend too much time on Facebook. I can’t resist stalking. Sometimes, I daydream about giving it up.

But my inability for self-control shouldn’t reflect poorly on the site. Facebook is, overall, a good thing.

It definitely ruins class reunions; I won’t argue that. If I can follow the marriages, careers and baby-having of my high school classmates, I don’t need to rehash the topics in a dusty gym for any other reason than to smile and pretend I didn’t already know.

So Facebook may ruin my weekend every five or 10 years. I couldn’t care less. Instead, it enhances my daily life.

I can’t easily gather together for some chit-chat a friend of a friend in Arizona, a relative in New Jersey, a newly-reconnected-with high school classmate in Chicago and an old roommate in LA. But this can happen on Facebook.

In-between all of the cats on treadmills and useless updates like “eating an everything bagel! woop woop!,” there’s an opportunity for substance.

People share news articles about topics they care about, update their social network about their life developments and make each other laugh. Facebook helps me maintain relationships with people I otherwise might not, and I enjoy those relationships.

The problem with Facebook, according to a 2010 Psychology Today article, “comes when we find ourselves subtly substituting electronic relationships for physical ones.” Put too high a percentage of your relationships online, the author warns, and you’ll start to feel lonelier.

Facebook isn’t always a good thing, but it certainly isn’t destroying us. When I return to Facebook after a weekend without internet access, I realize I haven’t really missed out on anything. As long as we realize our lives wouldn’t be worse off without Facebook and that it can’t replace our Face-to-Facebook relationships, we can enjoy the site for its benefits, and maybe a little bagel-bragging here and there.

 

Dan Martynowicz:

I deleted my Facebook in March 2011, and it was glorious. I had to. I had 700 “Friends” and talked to 30 of them. The best part? My news feed and cell phone were free of depressing Facebook statuses.

I’ve always thought posting a Facebook status implies I’m a narcissist. “Everyone must want to see what I have to say, so I’m going to tell them.” It’s a lot like being a columnist for the Northern Star. Oh, right. Irony.

But again, it made me sad to see the Facebook status of some poor soul who was destroyed because of what so and so did. Just scroll down a bit and you cant watch someone’s life fall apart before your eyes. I didn’t like putting my life on display for 670 total strangers. With this realization, I nuked my profile.

It was a blissful disconnect from the false reality which is social media, and a rediscovery of how peaceful anonymity can be. I didn’t have to keep up false appearances, or say things I don’t mean to maintain a ‘mirror image’ persona which really wasn’t me.

It was absolutely wonderful. After a while, however, I found myself missing my friends. I didn’t think it could be possible, and yet, there it was. I was invited to no parties, I didn’t get to see pictures from parties I was invited to, and keeping in touch with new people was increasingly difficult. I’d forgotten how to keep in touch without Facebook.

And so it was that on my 22nd birthday, 8 months after I deleted Facebook, I relapsed and created another. What can I say; it’s an addiction.

 

Jimmy Johnson:

Facebook completely ruins 10-year high school reunions.

Reunions, prior the creation of creeping from a distance on people via the web, were used to catch up with your classmates. You’d get all jazzed up, get together with a few of your old friends, show up and try to stick it to every person you had beef with during your youth. Or, at least, that’s what I think it’s like after watching Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion. (Forgive me, for I have sinned and my man card has dissolved into thin air.)

Facebook takes the fun out of all of that. You don’t get to see the all-around athlete who morphed into a chubby-checker. Or that person everyone thought was going to make it to Hollywood, and then you find out they’re working at the local Blockbuster.

Sorry, that’s just my cynical self speaking.

Now, with a click of a button and of course an accepted friend requested, people can literally follow and watch what their former classmates are up to each day.

You don’t get that buildup of walking through your old gymnasium and seeing all those people you haven’t seen in years; you can jump on your phone or computer and see it instantly. You can watch someone grow and change right on your computer. And in contrast to previous generations, we have better ways at our disposal to keep up with friends all thanks to the evolution of social media.

I, for one, have yet to experience my 10-year reunion. I’m on the fence on whether or not I’ll go.

Then again, every time I go home and head to a local bar its like a high school reunion, so I’ll likely pass.