First it was television, then the Internet, and today, in 2006, it’s Facebook. If you’re looking for a distraction, you’re in business. Otherwise, Facebook is probably the worst thing to happen to college students since the invention of the turnstile.

Wallace Stevens once said “Marx has ruined nature for the moment.” I think he meant Facebook when he said Marx.

This thing has gotten out of control. There are a slue of groups devoted to this bottomless pit of wasted hours and social drama, from “This Disease Called Facebook Has Sucked Me In” to “I Need a Fix and Facebook is my Crack.”

Sad. Just sad.

Facebook not only wastes time and ruins lives, it represents everything wrong with the world. There’s racial tension, a la the controversy over “White People of St. John’s.” The drug abuse, i.e. “Smoke Weed Everyday.” One thing Facebook definitely is, is a playground for conceit. Putting up a picture, with a photo album, and a description of yourself? Sounds more like a personal ad than a-well, what do you call Facebook?

Is it a social forum? A community Web site? A conspiracy headed by creator Mark Zuckerberg and the North Korean government to steal our identities?

It’s got to be the latter.

When politics gets involved, that’s when Facebook really crosses the line. There’s a group dedicated to Bill O’Reilly, a bunch for Bush haters, and even an anti-democracy group. Give it a rest guys. This is a silly little social Web site, not a political summit.

Complaints about Facebook are nothing new. The problems stem from how seriously people take it. You know things are out of control when you hear “did you see what she wrote on her wall?!” or “I can’t believe he put up that picture of me in his photo album!”

Why is there a Web site that promotes putting up photographs of college students? That can only spell trouble. Case and point- the group entitled “I was drunk when my Facebook picture was taken.”

Bad news.

There are definitely more beer bottles, funnels, and various other incriminating paraphernalia in Facebook photos than there are troops in Iraq, yet no one complains about withdrawing membership from the Web site of mass distraction.

Nothing good can come from a Web site that, worst of all, asks for your relationship status.

“O, I wonder if she’s single?! Damn, she’s married to-a girl?”

The whole idea of a Facebook profile is just absurd. Think about it – you get a space to tell everyone in your school about yourself just so you can read about other people. You basically replace the “Hi nice to meet you” with the privacy-of-your-own-home-stalking-technique.

And everybody does it.

I dream of the day when we will all leap from our desks, close our St. John’s-issued IBM’s, open our doors and pour out into the streets. We will hold hands, dance in harmony, and sing of the joy of meeting new people in person, not through Facebook photos depicting parties at Traditions.

I dream of the day when we will all delete our Facebook profiles.