"well i creeped on him and...."

A new trend has recently overtaken my house. Girls have become infatuated with finding their look alike in all the old composites around Theta. Walk through the hallways and you will find dozens of pink Post-it notes taped to the composites. Deme Bayt, blast to the past as Andrea Martin. Kylie Humbard, you may have been Jill Cantwell in a past life.

While this started out as a funny game, it has me contemplating over what life was like twenty or thirty years ago for these girls. So much has changed between music, fashion, and technology. While we still are listening to Michael Jackson’s hits, we certainly aren’t writing letters to one another or using a common phone to call our friends. But is this change in communication really a positive one?

In 1986, Holly Haight didn’t have Facebook to stalk her current crush. She couldn’t click through pictures posted of Greg to check out what he was doing Saturday night. She also couldn’t see from his status that he was on the fourth floor of Herman B. Wells studying for his Accounting exam all night. This obsession with having to know all simply didn’t exist like it does today.

And is that really a bad thing? I personally think a little mystery is good. If you already know Greg hiked a mountain when he was 19 and did IUDM his freshman year, will you be interested in what he has to say when you can talk to him one on one?

While Facebook certainly does make it easier to communicate with each other, it takes out the personal aspect of interaction. My friend Kenny likes Facebook because it is easy to talk to someone, but at the same time he says that it has become so impersonal.

This same idea applies to texting. Today, if we are “talking to someone,” we are probably just texting back and forth, hoping to see each other out on Thursday night or at Kilroys on Two Dollar Tuesdays. Going on a date to get to know someone? Please. That is a rare find. I’m pretty sure if Greg wanted to talk to Holly in 1986, he would have walked to see her and maybe even asked her to dinner.

So the question arises: Should we revert back to the days of face-to-face communication or stick with this new technology we have? My guess is we’ll stay with what we know, but maybe a few of us daring enough will show up on the steps of a sorority or fraternity ringing the doorbell to see our latest crush.