Facebook

Parents, high school students, and college students, have, in the past few years, developed a trait uniting them into one category of people. We have become addicts without realizing it, fearlessly spraying graffiti on each other's walls and shamelessly sending ridiculous or naughty gifts that cost a buck. Unbeknownst to us, we have become a single, multiage, diverse community unified by one factor alone, Facebook.

Let's "face" it: Facebook is slowly conquering our thought processes and desires, becoming a secret motivation to go through our daily lives. Want proof? If any of the following describe you, this assumption can be validated: not feeling the "officialness" of a friendship until clicking that “Friend Add” button; spending more than an hour's worth of guilty time staring at your friends' pages in a stalkerish kind of way; using Facebook for some major homework procrastination; and checking your email or even using the computer just as an excuse to get to your final, precious destination, Facebook. If these don't apply to you yet. You will be sucked in.

With more than a million people a week newly entering the world of Facebook and perhaps immigrating from Myspace, Xanga, or Friendster, Mark Zuckerberg, 23-year-old Harvard dropout and founder of Facebook, has found ways to accommodate for his diverse audience. These accommodations are called applications and range from the fun Graffiti Wall, where you can doodle and draw flowers, stick figures, and lovely, illegible words for your friends to the studious visual bookshelf that flaunts the books you've read, are reading, and will be reading. You can choose from hundreds of applications, personalizing your page and needs as a Facebook user, deleting them at will. These accommodations are a major reason, but not the only reason, of why many find Facebook pleasing and can feel at home regardless of who they are.

There's also the News Feed, the first thing you see as you sign in. At the center of the page, screaming for attention, the News Feed shows the activities, status, photo and video postings, and comments of all your friends and acquaintances at once without you having to stalk them one by one. This factor may make a few uncomfortable, making them feel naked and exposed; however, the privacy options, which can be found at the top right beside the logout button, are always available if needed.

Zuckerberg, moreover, found a clever way to place ads unlike the annoying ads in sites like Myspace – those ads found at the top of your personal page that can't be removed without a code and the ones before you even sign in. The ads are from time to time embedded in the News Feed and, for the most part, aesthetically pleasing. In other words, they don't freakishly fly around, making you chase the X button with anger, blast unexpected music, which can be an embarrassment in a quiet library; or have strange and often pointless games and polls to grasp your attention. Facebook additionally makes revenue from selling virtual gifts that people are actually willing to buy. You can send piñatas, penguins, hot dogs, lingerie, and such, sharing an inside joke only you and your friend know. For a dollar, you purchase this gift, leaving you with the choice of sending the gift privately, anonymously, or publicly, and you can also leave a little note if you wish.

Facebook, or as Newsweek puts it, the "online hangout" has bonded us together to become a Facebook Generation. One day, if it has not already occurred, you will sign into your account and find in sheer horror that your parents have requested to friend you. No, you don't have to add them, although rejecting them might hurt their feelings, but this will at least leave you in assurance that you have at least that one thing in common with them – Facebook.

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