Facebook: A better social website

Jump to Comments

by Tyler Christensen

At the end of every school year, students pay the fee to receive a copy of the Timpanogos Yearbook. However, only the yearbook staff gets to see its contents before publication date, after the events of the year are long gone. Imagine if a new yearbook was published every day, always with new pictures and messages.

Enter Facebook. The website, launched in 2004 for college students, is a place to gather and have fun with friends, and it might be called an online yearbook. Last year, the site was opened up to high school students in addition to universities, and since then students from across the country have adopted the site as their online home.

Timpanogos students are getting in on the increasing popularity as well. “Facebook’s pretty sweet,” Sam Pennington, sophomore, says. The site is organized into “networks,” or categories that people fit into, most of which are high schools and universities. The Timpanogos High School network is currently 388 people strong and growing weekly. Chances are high that everyone can find a friend on Facebook.

Though the site groups members by school, it’s not only for education. Each member has a profile page where they can add photos, list quotes and tell about their favorite books and movies. It also features the Wall, a place where friends can leave messages, pictures or even videos. “I can look at people’s pictures without them knowing,” joked Jacqueline Peck, a junior. “But Facebook is awesome cause I can talk with my great friends.”

If this all sounds a lot like MySpace, it’s because the sites are both based on the same concept. However, Facebook’s privacy controls, fun applications and clean interface are convincing many students to use both or to switch completely. “I really like Facebook,” says Josh Ells, a junior. “It’s less skanky than MySpace.”

Facebook also has fewer privacy concerns than MySpace. Like the school yearbook, only friends and fellow Timpanogos students can see your profile page, so strangers can’t collect random phone numbers. Photos, contact information and everything else on a profile can be hidden from the public, your network, your friends or any combination of the three.

Not everyone is jumping on the Facebook bandwagon, however. “I think Facebook is so much harder to use than MySpace,” Andrew McCargar, sophomore, says. “The whole layout is wack.”

Ultimately, the choice between Facebook and MySpace is based on personal taste. Facebook offers a cleaner interface, more organized structure and tighter privacy controls, while more people use MySpace. Profile pages on Facebook are customized by simple applications, or optional boxes that add games or other functionality; profile pages on MySpace are customizable by layouts and color schemes.

Students who already use MySpace might find that Facebook provides a more effective and fun way to communicate online with friends. It’s worth signing up to try even for people who don’t think they’d be interested in social websites. After all, Facebook is cheaper than the school yearbook (it’s totally free) and a lot more fun.

0 Comments

Filed under November 2007