“Post that!”; “Please delete it…”; “She doesn’t even look like that in real life”; “It looks like you’re having so much fun!”.
All commonly overheard in conversation over my past month at Duke; all related to an integral part of our social experiences: facebook.
Large goals of freshman fall are pretty standardly to meet people and to make them want to get to know you and to be your friend, ideally by making them think you are someone that they want to surround themselves with. There is only so much that we can control when it comes to how our looks, talents, intelligence, and personality are perceived, however something that we do have a great amount of control over is our social media presence. Because of this, we can get focused on hand-crafting this social media image.
Many freshmen thought about what their facebooks looked like before arriving on campus. The perfect profile and cover photos were chosen to delicately (yet unmistakably) communicate your amazing time in Europe, how excited you are for Duke, your love for your family, your extremely fun-loving lifestyle, and how tan you and your best friends got this summer. Having done so makes sense. Duke is full of amazingly talented, interesting, beautiful, and intelligent people. You are one of them and so you reasonably want to show them this; facebook is a seemingly good way to do so.
Clearly, people are going to check your facebook and cannot help but perceive you in a certain way from it. However, keep in mind that hopefully your new Duke facebook friends are also your new Duke friends. You have met them in a context where they have your personality and conversation to be attracted to and engage with, rather than a stream of profile pictures dating back to 2009. The people who you should consider new friends are not going to base their opinion of you off of your 2011 photobooth photos or even hopefully on the questionable dress that you wore to your junior prom. Remember to try to reciprocate this courtesy when you are on others’ profiles as well. Although it may appear to be easier to get to know someone by looking at their facebook in your dorm room, it is ultimately more fun and efficient to find out and make informed judgments about people in person.
Additionally, old photos of yourself and others should not matter. No one looks amazing in photos all of the time. If every photo on facebook is great of someone, I guarantee that there has been some deleting and detagging along the way. Truly, what you are doing currently and in-person matters so much more than what it seems like you were doing a year or even a few weeks ago.
Understanding that your new friends should be gauging who you are based on your experiences together, however, is not enough to release the facebook pressure. You also want to communicate that your awesomeness is still present and evolving to your home friends and family. It can seem that all that they have to focus on are your facebook pictures. Without a constant stream of pictures of yourself at parties or with new friends, it is easy to feel that it seems like they are all missing in your life and that you seem to be having a subpar freshman fall.
With this in mind, it does make sense to update your facebook for those who are not with you at college, but make sure that you focus on showing them what you are actually doing and enjoying, not just what you think you should be doing or you think that they think that you should be doing. You are obviously involved in things that you love and are meeting awesome people—no matter in what situation, show them these experiences. Because they are what interest you and are important to you so far, they are what should be displayed on your profile.
Beyond this, try to focus more on updating individually the friends and family who you care about knowing what you are up to. Obviously we are not going to stop uploading pictures of ourselves looking great and having fun, but do not take them for the sole reason of communicating that it happened. If you do not care about actually reaching out to people from home, try not to publish things to facebook with impressing them in mind. Especially if they are not reaching out in any other way, they should not be accounted for. Tell them you are having fun; explain all of your new friends; provide details about your activities. You do not need to show them to everyone who you have ever met in order to ensure that your good friends from high school know that you love college.
Your friends at Duke know what you’re doing so try not to worry about their facebook perception. Meet people at the parties you go to instead of taking a picture with the two people you know to show your facebook world that you were having a good time. Actually have a good time by meeting the boy who you want to also see that photo tomorrow morning. Often that will lead to the best situations and experiences—whether or not there is a picture as evidence. Contrary to popular belief, I promise that it did still happen even if “pics” do not.
Lastly, do not let your desire to look like you are having fun risk your future. Yes, you look cute with your red solo cup and bunny outfit, but a few years down the line you may wish that you just enjoyed yourself at the party instead of blasting it across the internet. Hopefully the night was great enough that it will stay in Shooters’ memory forever—exactly where you should want it.
Freshmen, we are a month in. There is so much more of our Duke experiences to encounter, enjoy, and take pictures during. Facebook is too popular, easy, and useful to forget about, but do your best focus on today and look forward to all that is to come, rather than on looking at your facebook page and worrying about what you do or do not see on it.