After the 10:10 showing of “The Social Network” on its evening premiere, I noticed I had a different reaction from the majority of the people leaving the theater. Instead of glorifying its story, I felt rather conflicted. While walking outside, I overheard three 30-something-year-olds talking to one another about how fascinated they were with the idea of Facebook. They were amazed that in high school, they could have known and seen pictures of what their fellow classmates did on the weekend. Uh. What? What’s so fascinating about that?

Then the idea dawned on me. What if, instead of “stalking” our friends, we actually had to ASK them what they did the past weekend? Instead of commenting on a friend’s profile picture telling them that they’re pretty, what if we actually had to bring it up in daily conversation? It’s an amazing fact that only eight years ago we lived in a world where a “friend” was really a friend and not someone you would track online but didn’t ever spend time with. I tried to imagine a world without Facebook and was instantly filled with anxiety. I began to hate Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook, not because of his purported arrogance but simply due to his (genius) idea of creating “the Facebook.”

When I get home from school, I go on Facebook. Before I go to dinner, I go on Facebook. Right before I go to bed, it’s Facebook. It gets to the point where I have memorized every single thing on my newsfeed. Basically, if “eat, pray, love,” is Julia Roberts’ mantra, my motto would be “think, type, stalk.” I am ashamed of such behavior, but I see no end in sight. There is always a new person to keep tabs on. At some points I have felt like instead of Facebook revolving around my life, my life instead revolves around Facebook.

Facebook defines us; it defines our generation. Being able to know exactly what our friends are doing at every moment of the day now seems normal to us. In a way, Facebook has consumed us. I have found myself at events where taking pictures is more important than actually engaging in the moment. Making sure that I am in the religion, history, AND the English picture becomes my excitement for the night. The night is a failure? Don’t worry, we have Facebook to look forward to when we get home and can follow our friends, wondering if we actually looked good that night and comparing ourselves to others. Facebook gives us the ability to live vicariously through others’ lives, and if we don’t remember that appearance is completely different from the actual reality, we might end up with a distorted perception of the world. Just because a person seems to be having fun does not mean they are.

What we must do is take a step back and think that yes, it is fun to “spy on” our friends (well, maybe not our actual friends), but it is more fun to live our own lives. We must remember that we are all living quite interesting lives as well, and at least in my case, recognize that the most fun experiences are usually the ones not documented on Facebook. They are the random, candid encounters among close friends, and not the posed and edited pictures we put up on Facebook for the world to see.

Oh, I forgot to mention, this article took me a total of four hours to write. Why? Just guess.