So you’re about a month into the semester, getting settled and into the swing of things, and home couldn’t be further away. Or could it? As soon as we log onto Facebook, we are flooded by status updates, muploads, and selfies galore, posted by people we really don’t care all that much about. Who decided that we should care about what everyone’s doing every second of the day? How is that we find ourselves on picture 230 of a (very) distant cousin’s vacation album?

Before I arrived at Brown for the semester, I came to a scary realization: I had over 1,000 Facebook friends. I’m really not sharing this to brag—no one actually has 1,000 friends in real life. I certainly don’t. So I tried the Facebook Cleanse. Like a juice cleanse, the idea is to get rid of all of the unnecessary details on your news feed by defriending the people you no longer really care about. Benefits and drawbacks of the Cleanse after the jump.

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Old People Writing On a Restaurant’s Facebook Page. It’s pretty self-explanatory: the same 60- and 70-somethings who list “contract bridge” and “love watching sports GO CELTICS AND PATRIOTS” as their interests on their profiles take to the Facebook pages of restaurants and franchises to share their various questions, thoughts, appreciations, and grievances about poor food, poor service, and bizarre ad campaigns.

As for the conclusions that can be drawn from this tumblr: old people do not know how to use Facebook (see @oldmansearch); old people should not be on Facebook to begin with.

Image via. 

It’s reading period. We’re supposed to be studying. So why I am watching episode after episode of Secret Life of the American Teenager? I don’t even like this show! I can literally feel my brain cells dying. 

Procrastination: We all do it. It’s a blessing and a curse. So how do we combat it during finals? Here are some tips and tricks:

1. Deactivate your Facebook. I used to get a friend to change my password so I couldn’t use it. On the first day of summer, I relogged onto Facebook only to find my profile picture changed to this: [Read more →]

Facebook: the final frontier. A place where politicians and mustached Greenpoint loft-dwellers alike can join in social networking bliss while some kid who didn’t even graduate from Harvard makes billions off of their personal information. That’s right. Facebook isn’t reminding you to watch the new Kelsey Grammer series Boss because it loves you, it’s advertising it to you because your favorite television shows are Cheers, Fraiser and, for better or worse, the one and only season of Grammer’s failed post-Fraiser sitcom Back to You.

If you haven’t already noticed, here at BlogDailyHerald we like to overanalyze things. So when we found out that Katherine Bergeron (aka KBerg) had an actual Facebook page, we just had to take Berg Watching to a whole ‘nother level. What we found will probably not amaze you, but you can find our close reading of KBerg’s Facebook page after the jump.

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We know you know. Ruth is stepping down. Reactions have been mixed: some cried, some nodded their heads respectfully, some went into hysterics (I am guilty of this one). What brought us all together, however, was not the community announcement listserv. It was the need to express our emotions, vent our frustrations and share the joy of having had the opportunity to see Ruth at the Blue Room… through the Internet.

The mass of Facebook status updates which resulted from the news of Ruth’s impending resignation began at circa 10:50 a.m., just minutes after the email from Ruth was sent out to all Brunonians. Here are some of our favorite updates:

First, the shock. And the rhetorical questions.

Then, the panic.   [Read more →]

The computer: helping college students procrastinate since 1990.

Attention Brown Students: It’s about to be finals period, and chances are, you’re looking for a new way to put off writing those 10-15 page final papers and contributing to group Google Doc exam study guides. As if they knew it was crunch time on college campuses, according to recent articles from the New York Times’ Bits blog and The Wrap, YouTube and Facebook —probably some of the most frequented procrastination sites–are both about to expand their services by launching new ventures that may look somewhat familiar.

According to the The Wrap, YouTube has plans to offer instant movie streaming services, much like Netflix Instant or Apple movies. Depending on how it goes, our Netflix Files may be turning into YouTube Files.   [Read more →]

Attention all college applicants! It appears that your nightmare has come true. According to a recent Kaplan survey of admissions offices, more than 80 percent of college admissions officers consider an applicant’s social media presence. In short, your Facebook is under scrutiny. The degree to which your Facebook profile really influences your admission chances, however, varies per school and per officer. See what a Brown admission officer has to say and read up on precautionary steps to take all after the jump! [Read more →]

From taking exams to taking shots, from attending section to having sexction, from smoking Buddha to learning about Buddha, college is defined by a variety of experiences. Whether you know it or not, all of these experiences affect your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. This new series hopes to explore and discuss the psychology behind phenomena you might otherwise overlook. Item one on the menu is the depressive nature of Facebook:

Let’s be real. When was the last time you were stalking that person’s Facebook whom you secretly admire (be patient, Valentines Day is near!) and found yourself thinking, “Wow. This person has a lot of friends and seems to be having an inordinate amount of fun in every one of his/her photos.”

According to a recent article in Slate Magazine, Facebook may be, in fact, making us feel crummy. And seeing as depression is on the rise in college students, is it possible that Facebook is to blame? [Read more →]

Changed your Facebook profile picture to a cartoon character recently to raise awareness about child abuse?  A post published today on Gawker’s ValleyWag blog shows us just how much of a difference we’re all making:

GAWKER: So, abuse any kids today?
CHILD ABUSER: Nope.
GAWKER: Why not?
CHILD ABUSER: It’s this cartoon thing. I guess I never realized people cared so much about child abuse that they would go to the trouble of changing their Facebook avatar for a day.
GAWKER: Actually they’re changing their profile pictures for the whole weekend.
CHILD ABUSER: Dear God…

Read the full post here.  Don’t forget to check out the cause’s Facebook page and change your profile picture to an image of Squidward.  Guilt-easing Facebook trends don’t come along just every day, and you don’t want to miss out before the next let’s-change-the-world meme takes hold.

Don’t forget to install the Social Media Sobriety Test on your computer before you do.  The folks over at Webroot have developed a new tool that will block your Facebook/Twitter/Myspace during a select few hours of the evening/early morning when (drunkenly) logging onto your various social networking accounts can do some serious damage (and lead to major regrets in the morning).  When you first install the program, you can select which sites you want to regulate and the hours that you want it to be active.  When you try to go to a site that you have set up regulation on during the hours that you specified, you will be redirected to a sobriety test which you must pass before you can continue.  The only problem is that some of the tests that they use are nearly fucking impossible even while sober.  [Read more →]