Yellowcard- When You're Through Thinking, Say Yes
Ghostbusters 1+2
Diego Maradona
Phineas and Ferb
Rebecca Black- Friday
My new TOMS
Aldous Huxley- Brave New World
Hairspray
The Onion
Jimmer Fredette
Well thats it. Until next time,
Stay Classy
Saturday, March 26, 2011
and sunday comes afterwards
Hey interwebs, so it's been a few weeks since I did a post and that means I have a lot on my mind. In order to expedite this process I have decided to forgo words and just use pictures to show all of you the things that I have been thinking about the past two weeks. Here we go.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
almost forgot
So in all the craziness yesterday, I nearly forgot to post on my awesome blog. That was close.
This week I realized that I might be spread a little too thin. Between school, quidditch (which is going awesome by the way), TOMS, trying to start a YouTube channel, my online sociology class, Jersey Shore, and student council, I'm feeling a tad overwhelmed. Something has got to go. Probably homework. Nah just kidding. Sleep isn't that important is it? How about eating? Oh well. Ill figure something out.
Anyways, I'm really tired so instead of writing a blog post as usual, I'm going to post an article I wrote for the school paper that was published this week. I think it's one of my best, but I would really like some insight from my beautiful readers. Please. Anyways, here it is.
In this day and age, you would be hard pressed to find someone under the age of 30 that did not have a Facebook page, let alone a teenager that actually opposes the site. However my dear readers, I will be so bold. My name is Austin Duval, and I have been clean from Facebook for 36 days. It is my opinion that Facebook has very few benefits and in some cases, is socially destructive.
Facebook has become a means of instant communication between not only you and a friend, but to thousands of people you hardly know. To several people this seems like a positive; they can just say whatever they want, whenever they want, to whoever they want. You know who these people are. There once was a time where people actually had to think about what they say before they say it, but not anymore. All the thought and nuance that used to go into conversations has become obsolete over the internet, turning us into the sort of people that just blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. The thing about the internet is that once you click "post", you can never take it back. It now will exist forever, for the world to see.
Which brings me to another aspect of Facebook that I find disturbing: the underlying judgmental theme of the whole site. Out of your hundreds of friends, at any given time, one of them is looking at your pictures and judging you. Whether it's your best friend, that one girl that was in your third grade class, or the creepy kid who stares at you and smells like waffles. Although you may not want to admit it, you have undoubtedly done some Facebook stalking of your own. Could you imagine if you did that in public? People get arrested for that kind of stuff. You aren't a creeper in real life, so why be one online?
Your "friends" aren't the only one that can access you personal information though. Facebook has been selling your personal information to companies for years, but of course, you know that because you thoroughly read the Terms of Service on the site right?. That's what I thought. According to the Terms (that you completely blew off reading), not only does Facebook own anything you put on the site (section 2.1), but if you don't keep your information up-to-date, they have the right to terminate your account (section 14). Essentially, they are using you as the biggest advertising research team on the planet.
Let's face it people, you don't have 837 friends, but that's OK. You probably have a few genuine friends, and that's what's best for you. You don't need hundreds of people knowing about your problems and privately judging you. Your Facebook self does not define you. In the words of Ross Gardner, "You are much more beautiful
Facebook has become a means of instant communication between not only you and a friend, but to thousands of people you hardly know. To several people this seems like a positive; they can just say whatever they want, whenever they want, to whoever they want. You know who these people are. There once was a time where people actually had to think about what they say before they say it, but not anymore. All the thought and nuance that used to go into conversations has become obsolete over the internet, turning us into the sort of people that just blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. The thing about the internet is that once you click "post", you can never take it back. It now will exist forever, for the world to see.
Which brings me to another aspect of Facebook that I find disturbing: the underlying judgmental theme of the whole site. Out of your hundreds of friends, at any given time, one of them is looking at your pictures and judging you. Whether it's your best friend, that one girl that was in your third grade class, or the creepy kid who stares at you and smells like waffles. Although you may not want to admit it, you have undoubtedly done some Facebook stalking of your own. Could you imagine if you did that in public? People get arrested for that kind of stuff. You aren't a creeper in real life, so why be one online?
Your "friends" aren't the only one that can access you personal information though. Facebook has been selling your personal information to companies for years, but of course, you know that because you thoroughly read the Terms of Service on the site right?. That's what I thought. According to the Terms (that you completely blew off reading), not only does Facebook own anything you put on the site (section 2.1), but if you don't keep your information up-to-date, they have the right to terminate your account (section 14). Essentially, they are using you as the biggest advertising research team on the planet.
Let's face it people, you don't have 837 friends, but that's OK. You probably have a few genuine friends, and that's what's best for you. You don't need hundreds of people knowing about your problems and privately judging you. Your Facebook self does not define you. In the words of Ross Gardner, "You are much more beautiful
than your profile picture. You are much more interesting than your profile."
Stay classy
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