online
identity crisis

by Hades Corey

"Hadas Rocks Your World."

That was the name of my Web page,

Sounds enticing. right? You would want to

meet me, wouldn't you?

In Mr. Shaheen's debate class one day

last November, my friend Alex told me he had

just seen my MySpace. Confused and slightly

upset, I asked him if he was sure.

"Well," he said. "I don't know many girls

named Hadas, and there are tons of pictures

of you and your friends."

OK, now I was just downright scared. I

knew I hadn't made a MySpace and that

would never advertise myself as "Hades

Rocks Your World." I quickly went online and

typed in the link for the Web page. Turns out

Jordyn Waterstone, a North Farmington High School junior, gets distracted by Facebook.

someone used my name, face, age, location

and other private information to connect with

got facebook? who doesn't?

more than 100 friends from all over Michigan

on MySpace.

My safety? My reputation? How about

my sanity? I immediately started to look at

social networking site can be a great tool, but also addicting,

everyone I had ever met in a different light.

In my mind, I questioned all of my friends

by Shaye Winer

he school day just doesn't seem to end. Your home-
work is piling up, and you have no clue how you're
going to get all of it done on time. The final bell rings,
but you have to go somewhere: sports, a meeting, after-school
activities or even work.

You get home a little later than you thought and go to your
computer to start your homework. You take out your assign-
ments and books, and decide to do your research first. But then
you decide to check your e-mail, and you see seven new Face-
book notices. You've got to check them out, so you go to ww-w.
facebook.com before the homework begins — and before you
know it, you've been on Facebook for hours.
Facebook has many good points and some bad. It is an ex-
cellent communication tool to keep you connected to school
friends or even friends who live on the other side of the world.
The Web site was started in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, now
23, as a popular college connection site, open only to registered

students as a way for them to meet each other before school
started. Then the site added select high schools, then all high
schools. Now anyone with an e-mail address who wants to have
a Facebook can have one — even your PARENTS.
New users join Facebook daily. As of this July, the site clocked
more than 34 million active users worldwide. From September
2006 to September 2007, the site went from 60th to seventh
most visited Web site.
With all this activity, it's easy to see its popularity. What these
facts don't show, however, is the addictive quality of the site.
"I love my Facebook so much," said Becca Millman, a ninth-
grader at the Frankel Jewish Academy in West Bloomfield. "It
keeps me in touch with all of my friends all the time. Some-
times I stay on it for so long, without even realizing it. I go on
Facebook every single day, and there are always new things to
enjoy!"

Facebook talk doesn't always stay just on the computer. It's
made its way into spoken language as well.
"Every day I always hear comments like, 'tag me,' add me'

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and tried to remember the last time we had

gotten in a fight so bad that it would have

prompted the person to do this. I thought of

all the people who wrote and commented on

this Web page, with the intention of talking

to me.

At first I was angry, then confused and

finally worried.

After the dust settled, I was sad, I was

sad that my reputation was no longer a repre-

sentation of who I really am. After 16 years, I

had lost something that was really important

to me.

There is no way to edit the information

a person puts on their personal profile. It is

their space to do as they please — hence

the name MySpace. You can be whomever

you want and. I guess, in this case that per-

son was me.

So I am wondering, if egging someone's

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teen2teen October • 2007 1B