Virtual reality: Facebook's pros and consVirtual reality: Keeping in

Topeka Capital-Journal, The, Mar 30, 2008

This morning I received an e-mail from a friend and graduate school colleague who is spending the year abroad doing research in Germany for her master's degree. In the message, she wrote that she "wishes she could give all those 'hugs' she just sent, in the flesh."

Yes, in this increasing virtual world in which we live in, you can receive hugs, drinks and even have a snowball fight through online communities like MySpace or Facebook.

This particular message came from Facebook, which describes itself as "a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them."

The company launched from a Harvard dorm room slightly more than four years ago. Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes began the site as a way to keep track of their friends at Harvard. It quickly expanded to other schools, and they eventually moved operations to Palo Alto, Calif. In October 2007, Microsoft invested $240 million in Facebook.

The success of Facebook in its brief existence is staggering. It has more than 55,000 networks, including colleges, high schools and employment-related organizations. It has 67 million active users, is the fifth most-trafficked Web site in the world and the second most- trafficked social media site in the world.

How can we account for the popularity of this idea?

I must confess I first heard of Facebook from my students at The University of Kansas, many of whom spoke about how obsessively they check and update their Facebook page, even during my class at times.

Naturally, athletes are extremely popular on Facebook; hundreds, if not thousands, of students send requests to these individuals asking to become a "friend." Of course, students at rival schools can post messages to these pages, too, which can be rather frustrating. I've heard some students simply refuse to check their pages or discontinue them altogether. I've even heard of individuals creating fake Facebook pages for certain athletes and other well- known individuals to embarrass them.

When I first joined Facebook it was restricted to individuals with a valid college or university e-mail. Apparently, students felt secure with this restriction, so many of them posted rather graphic pictures of their nights out on the town. Now, most of us can remember doing some crazy things in our youth, but technology has changed our ability to keep these things under wraps. If I took some pictures at a local bar, it took weeks or even longer for me to develop those pictures. Now, I can be having a drink, someone else can snap a picture with a camera phone and it's posted for the entire world to see almost instantly.

However, I do love the immediacy that Facebook provides. If I want to correspond with my friends and former students all across the globe, Facebook affords me this opportunity. Marshall McLuhan wrote about the global village nearly 60 years ago, and it appears this has become a reality. How about a virtual group hug?

Nicolas Shump is a doctoral student in American studies at The University of Kansas. He can be reached at Nico1225@sunflower.com.