<p>Hi,</p>
<p>Been awhile since I posted here, but wow, I never knew I’d get such a reaction from my original thread! I’ve been told (and do agree) that I need to work on how “elite” I sometimes sound (joke there for anyone who remembers Elite as an old typewriter font 
). I (the OP) am “only” 25 (and will be a transfer student, not a freshman), but have also been told on several occasions that I’m “an old soul” (i.e. at least 3x this age spiritually, emotionally and culturally).</p>
<p>I did have a Facebook account for about a day, maybe a week, two at most, just to see what all the hubbub was about, but quickly deactivated it (forgot about it, then deleted it not long ago – actually, shortly after I found out Bin Laden was also “deleted”). But I do own one of those low-powered netbooks that someone here recommended, which would work well for me because they serve as little more than pint-size word processors. I just found an old software disc I had of MS Word 2000 (the one with the paperclip – I know, I’m part of another minority that <3’s “Clippy”), and loaded that up instead of Office 2007 with all the bells and whistles. At least I won’t be click-clacking on the keys at 2 a.m. typing away my someday bestseller (or term paper, as the case may be), but with any luck I won’t have a roommate to bother either (there’s no on-campus housing for transfers at Emerson and I am going to see if I can specifically request a “single”/one-person apartment).</p>
<p>What concerns me is that the faculty may require (or “strongly encourage”) the class to have a Facebook account, and will base a lot of their assumptions on the fact that 90% of students already do (and won’t make allowances, at least not easily, for those of us who don’t and/or won’t). This has happened to me in the past, when an art-class professor who was very active on her Facebook page cancelled the class but did not use the campus announcement system to alert her students, because all of them were already her Facebook “friends” and it was only I and an older lady (about 40 or so) who came to class that day. It was blistering cold, a New England blizzard, and being the good little student I was, I showed up at class anyway because I was not privy to the knowledge of her “inner circle” of online “Elite.” </p>
<p>I was also a home-schooled student right up until attending the CC, and thus have no in-person “friends” of which to speak, and thus no real reason to have the Facebook as it really only serves a purpose if one has face-to-face contacts already. I hope that doesn’t sound elite in itself (although it may sound kind of sad), and I don’t mean to continue on that theme, but the kind of friends I’d have probably would feel the same way as I do about the paradoxical term “social networking.” I also read [this</a> article](<a href=“http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1891111,00.html]this”>http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1891111,00.html) about an Ohio State University doctoral candidate and her colleague from Ohio Dominican U. who did a study on the average GPA of Facebook-using students vs. their non-Facebook counterparts – 3.0-3.5, I believe, is the average for Facebook users, vs. 3.5 and up for the non-Facebook crowd (mine’s a 3.86 ). Probably because they spend whatever time they would on Facebook either studying, in extracurriculars, volunteering, working, or doing something else rather than checking/updating their online accounts.</p>
<p>As an aside, I am old enough to remember CompuServe; I wasn’t aware that it even still existed, that and AOL Dial-Up (I’d give anything for the good old days of BBSes, IRC, and Usenet before Twitter, Digg, and “Web 2.0” took over the world). Also, I’m not a Republican (<em>lol</em>); actually quite the opposite, in fact some of my more left-wing professors have commented that I must be a Socialist (which I am). Ironically, because I’m so introverted, I might be considered an anti-social Socialist, but at least I’m well aware of the face-to-face social humanness that is sadly lacking anywhere but the Sneakernet :)</p>
<p>But I still do wonder about the question I sort of posed above – because it’s now “the norm,” and supposedly a given that “everyone does it,” will I be “required” in some way to have a Facebook account or some type of online identity besides my age-old Yahoo email address (and/or the campus mail .edu account), and get penalized by the professor if I don’t/won’t have one?</p>