Stop with the faces

What is this obsession with Thefacebook?\nFor the 12 of you living in the basement of Ballantine who don't know what www.Thefacebook.com is, don't ask me because I don't get it.\nI know it involves online profiles, chains of friends and way too much extra time on the hands of college students.\nThe other day, my roommate asked me if I wanted to join his facebook group. Completely perplexed -- yet also chagrined from his frequent requests to do senseless things -- I asked him why. \n"Why the flip should I join your stupid cyber-profile party?"\n"Because then we can be friends," he replied. "Everybody's in my group."\n"But we're already friends," I said. "What's the point?"\n"Yeah, but if you join my facebook group, we can be friends online."\nWhoa, whoa, whoa. I thought that was the ridiculous premise behind instant messaging. When I come home from an exhausting day at the Indiana Daily Student, I have to see all the people I can barely tolerate again in that little white box at the top of the screen. (I quickly post an away message before the most intolerable folks can see that I'm online.)\nInstant messaging has gotten so out of hand that many of us don't even walk to the next room to talk to our roommates. Why speak when you can pound out "Wanna go out 2night" on your keyboard?\nBut Thefacebook serves us up another reason to be idle and content with our newly found dependence on technology. I can't figure out for the life of Vaio what this new trend is. I create a profile (which has my picture so all of you can see what I look like when I'm not on the computer), and then I try to make "friends" with the other bodiless faces in the book. If I'm really lucky, he or she will (cross my fingers) accept me. Otherwise, I get rejected, which is perhaps the most life-like aspect of the whole inane system.\n"But you can be connected to everybody through their friends. It's like 'Six degrees of Kevin Bacon.'"\nOh, wow, that's amazing.\nWait, no it's not. What the crap?\nIf we want to be "connected" to oodles of people in different crowds, how about the old-fashioned method -- meet them.\nThis really is a novel concept. The next time you have the urge to know more folks, go somewhere with one of your friends and (gasp) meet some of their friends. \n"But wait, there's more," a faithful Thefacebooker might say, "You can be connected to people through their classes."\nThis is a tough argument to defeat, but I have one idea -- go to class. \nIt's not that I hate the idea of Thefacebook; it's just that I don't get it. It seems like just another excuse to waste time while you could be doing something worthwhile. (Are you listening, Real World, Madden 2004 and fantasy baseball?)\nI get that it's a good way to keep up with friends, but if you long for your ex-girlfriend from high school, give her a call. If she hangs up on you, it'll be just like she pressed the "reject" button, only way more satisfying. The clack of a speeding telephone receiver always beats an e-mail with a consolation prize. \nSo look up because you won't see that goofy mug shot anywhere near Thefacebook. If you need to scratch the cyber-networking itch, try a throwback remedy: Do something real. \nAnd, no, instant messaging does not count.