LIRR 終於有離家越來越近的感覺

Although I'd heard of Facebook as early as it was born 3 or 4 years ago in the States and got very popular among high school and undergraduate students, I never used it. I didn't have any undergraduate friends in the university, and I didn't teach so I didn't have to interact with them. None of my friends in the graduate school was using it. It's natural that I didn't need it to communicate with people.

However, things changed. A friend I met in Istanbul sent me a Facebook invitation months after we parted. I was not surprised, because she is an American. She might have used it since she was in college. Another few months passed by, and another invitation came. This time, I was surprised because it came from a Chinese colleague. I thought, "What? Asian students get to know this site and start to join it?" It arouse my curiosity, so I registered an account.

I found later that a few months ago Facebook started to welcome non-academic users to register. No wonder a lot of non-American-college students joined in. But I was shocked when I saw many British colleagues of mine on it. I thought it's just undergraduates' networking toy, but now it looks like those undergraduates have grown up and brought the habit into graduate schools. I was always concerned about not having enough time to social with my British colleagues, and now my problem is solved. I think the private and informal interaction on Facebook helps us, the extremely busy students who seldom have tea together, communicate better.

I have to admit that it's very addictive. (That's why I haven't updated here for quite a long time, ha ha~!) To some extent, it's quite a stupid thing but it's fun. It requires users' true personal information and copies users' network in real life to the Internet, so it might be dangerous in matters concerning privacy. I'm very aware of this, so I'm still testing with it.