Freshman facebook and Ph directory beware: A new stalking service is sweeping through campus faster than it takes to connect to the Internet.
Sunday’s inclusion of Northwestern on the social networking Web site www.thefacebook.com is bringing out the addictive personalities of students.
“It’s an epidemic … my whole hall is infected,” said Erica Birnbaum, a Communication freshman.
But it’s not only one hall. After being available for only about 34 hours, 931 NU students already had registered as of 8 p.m. Monday and begun sharing their screen names, class schedules, favorite movies and favorite music. As many as 1,688 NU students had registered at that time when accounting for students who requested privacy features on the site, said Chris Hughes, a spokesperson for the Facebook.
The Web site was created by Harvard University sophomore Mark Zuckerberg. It opened for his entire campus February 4.
Zuckerberg decided to offer the site to other schools at the end of February, starting with schools he felt had a lot of friendship “overlap” with Harvard students. On Sunday, NU became the most recent addition to a list of 26 participating schools.
“Northwestern has been a priority on our (expansion) list for a really long time,” said Hughes, a sophomore at Harvard. “We’ve always expected a great deal of overlap with NU.”
The Web site connects students by allowing them to search other members’ profiles and requesting to add them as “friends.” This request is sent to the potential friends via e-mail.
Such a large quantity of friend request and confirmation e-mails being sent from the Facebook caused Northwestern University Information Technology to block all mail sent from the site Sunday night. The e-mails were stopped because they lacked a reverse look-up feature, something common of spam mail and viruses, said Wendy Woodward, director for NUIT.
“It was viewed as an attack against the network,” she said.
NUIT started allowing the e-mails through the system again mid-Monday after getting in touch with thefacebook.com, Woodward said.
But even that delay did not stop eager students from editing their profiles online.
Weinberg sophomore Michael Oxman said he is so addicted to the Facebook that while taking notes in class Monday he searched his computer for a picture to post on the site.
Although all members access the same site and features, users can only view the profiles of classmates at their own school. Furthermore, students can enable an extensive list of privacy features that make their profiles available only to select users. Members can limit viewership of their profiles to just users in their grade, residence or specific classes.
The service is free to members, but there is “internal investment” required of the team that created it, Hughes said.
“As we expand, the cost will go up, so we will need to fund it,” he said. “But right now our main priority is to have a Web site that people can come back to.”
The Facebook is not the only option for social networking online. There also are sites such as Friendster, where members also can post their pictures and interests.
Hughes said the Facebook differs from Friendster on many levels. Not only do the two sites have different features, such as the Facebook’s option to post your class schedule and see the profiles of class rosters, but the Facebook also is grounded in real communities, whereas Friendster is large and anonymous.
“Anyone you see in your (Facebook) network you can see in real life,” Hughes said. “Every day you could eat next to them in the dining hall, pass them on the street.”
Communication freshman Esther Gibofsky said she prefers Friendster because she can leave “testimonials” for friends that others browsing her profile can view and read.
But Gibofsky said no matter how much she uses social networking programs, they are just a waste of time.
“Now not only do I have to sign on and check away messages, I also have to check Friendster and now the Facebook,” she said.
