Quinn Cohane
Sociology 022 – In the Facebook Age – Spring 2010 – Dhiraj Murthy

The librarians from my high school put up a firewall on school computers that prevented Facebook access. I didn’t mind; I was always kind of excited to go home, log on to Facebook and see if I had any updates. I have a Blackberry now but I never use it to check Facebook. I still like having that element of surprise when I log on for the first time all day.

The question of whether police officers should be able to access Facebook content without a warrant is interesting. I actually don’t know where I stand on that. I’ll have to think about it.

I’ve already forgotten when the News Feed feature was added to Facebook. Was it there when I joined in the summer of 2008? I’m not sure. It seems so natural for it to be there now; I can’t imagine my Facebook experience without it.

I think many of my friendships from home would have detiorated quickly without Facebook. We do most of our communicating through a group thread on Facebook. I’m able to look at their profiles and picture and find out which sororities they’ve joined and who their new close friends are. I think talking to them on the phone or just instand messaging would not have made me feel as much a part of their new lives as I do now.

I’ve never friended a stranger on Facebook or accepted a strangers’ friend request. All of my Friends are people I know, people I used to know, and in a few rare cases, the friend of a close friend that I have met in person but have heard a lot about.

Bowdoin has taken advantage of Ning and has created SNSs for those considering Bowdoin, first year students and I think for students to find out about career planning opportunities. I’ve joined all of them but probably only logged on once. It’s great that Bowdoin is trying to “be hip” but I’ve found it’s efforts a little unnecessary.

I never had a Bebo either, but my friend from Ireland does. I’m so used to Facebook and MySpace that sometimes I can’t believe there are other popular SNSs in the world.

I like reading about how many of the SNSs were pretty low-key until the defining moment when the world found out about them. I never had a MySpace, but many of my friends did. I wonder when I first found out about it.

I read an article once about a teenage girl that became a millionaire from designing MySpace layouts. It reminds me of people making money in Second Life.

I’ve never heard of Orkut or Live Spaces, but they were made by two of the biggest companies in the world.