Facebook eligibility debate continues

Maria Bourlokas
Staff Writer
Facebook has been a popular networking website since 2004. The website was created primarily for college students, but is used for professional networking, finding old classmates, and for anyone wanting to keep in touch with family and friends. Now in 2008, Facebook’s servers are home to 224 million users, aged from high school and college students to senior citizens. When it was created, Facebook required prospective members to have a college e-mail address, like johnsmith@ college.com. However, on September 26th 2006, Facebook opened their site to the general public.

The main reason many students are using facebook today is to keep in touch with friends from high school, and those who have gone away to a different college. When asked why they used facebook instead of MySpace, students gave several reasons.

“I use it more often cause it’s not full of too much junk and you can chat with whoever you want,” ECC student Casey Dezwijger said. “It tells you when people are online, It’s like AIM (AOL instant messanger) and MySpace mixed together, (like the) best of both worlds”

As the internet becomes more abundant in households, parents have begun to join Facebook to monitor their children. A debate has been raging since Facebook’s switch to public membership, and some students are a bit cautious about the idea of their parents, aunts or uncles and even their bosses being able to view their profiles.

“I really don’t mind having family members on Facebook, it’s a fun way to share pictures and stuff with family,” ECC student Jana Smith said. “But it’s also a little weird that your mom can see everything you’re doing.”

Some of the newly eligible adults agree with this idea. As ECC teacher Anna Lalley believes, for children under 17 that are still living at home, if the parents want to inspect their profile, they should be allowed to do so.

“Those 18+ should be allowed to display anything they may like, because they are an adult,” Lalley said.

Jake Burau, an ECC student who uses Facebook for convenience, agreed.

“Since I’m on my own, I don’t see my family very often, so having Facebook keeps us in touch without wasting so many of our minutes,” Burau said.