Open (Face)book?

Last week, Facebook, the popular social networking site, revamped its page, creating a pseudo-news feed of what everyone's friends are doing. Instead of common things like who was having a birthday that week, it displayed everything from a new comment a friend made on another friend's page to when relationships were broken off and so on. Not only did it list every minor detail, it also displayed the exact time this action took place -- kind of like a news ticker, only even worse than corporate news (if you can imagine that). \nThis, at first, would seem like a good idea for anybody who has ever posted a new picture or reworked his or her "about me" section and thought, "I doubt anybody will actually ever read this, but what the hell?" But many Facebookers are concerned about privacy, which seems kind of ironic since Facebook is a site where, in order to sign up, you have to provide your name and school e-mail address. \nJust hours after Facebook's facelift, several anti-Facebook groups had been created and attracted thousands of members ... on Facebook. One of the most popular of these groups is called "Students Against Facebook News Feed (Official Petition to Facebook)," which had attracted more than 740,000 members in just four days. \nThe high level of protesting has made so much noise that site creator Mark Zuckerberg issued a public apology, and Wednesday, Time magazine said this might be Generation Y's first official revolution. \nThink about that for a second. First official revolution? Over Facebook? The accuracy of Time's assessment is not important. What is important is that it says so much about the lack of interest this generation has in real, important issues. Forget about war, helping fight hunger or actually communicating with your friends in person, Facebook is all that really matters, right? If you were to create a Facebook group that dealt with issues such as protecting free speech or keeping the government out of religion, would it have 740,000 members? Not likely. But if a new policy is introduced on Facebook that you don't like, then join the \nrevolution!\nOne good thing that could come out of this is that people might think before adding 200 "friends" they hardly know. Because trying to appear popular could have its downfalls.\nIf people don't want their friends to see what they put on their profiles, then maybe they shouldn't even make a page about themselves on the Internet. If people are that worried about creepy Facebook stalkers, then perhaps they shouldn't add people as their friend unless they know them very well. Perhaps they shouldn't be on a Web site posting countless pictures of themselves with their full name and location. Perhaps they could get off of Facebook and protest something of more importance and bring about a real change to the world. If you're concerned about privacy, get off Facebook and try to learn how to keep a low \nprofile.