We’re probably all guilty of it. Even I have to come clean that I have a Myspace page, but what effects is this global social networking community really having on us? 

We’ve all heard the problems of Myspace: the inappropriate pictures, the online bullying, etc. but have we really thought about how much these things really do happen in real life? 

As college students, we also may just think that only those who are young and immature experience these negative effects of the site but it has become clear to me through my experiences that Myspace may just be our generation’s downfall.

I think it’s important to first talk about the common problems of Myspace.  As a senior in college it may surprise you to learn that I have been a victim of online bullying by my peers.

Yes, as a senior in college!

Get that myth out of your head that only high school and middle school students participate in this juvenile way of bullying because here is living proof that Myspace allows even those who are supposed to have outgrown that sort of hedonism the chance to put others down through online written messages.

 In this day and age, I think it’s about time we all stopped fighting, but a place like Myspace allows us to see what others are doing and gives us a chance to make fun of that.

In the simplest way to put it, why can’t we all just get along?

The next biggest problem with Myspace is the obsession that it has caused, and again not just with early teens. 

Myspace has become this kind of cyber crack where people spend all of their time online trying to make their pages portray them as whatever they want to be.  Some people spend hours perfecting their virtual homes just so that people will look at them in a certain way, a way that may not even be who they really are. 

Some girls try to put up the most scandalous pictures possible of themselves just to get some attention from the virtual community.  Or people may post up pictures of drinking or participating in illegal activities just to make themselves seem like a certain kind of person, one who likes to have fun or has a lot of freinds.

 And I’m sure we’ve all gotten the warnings from our professors about future employers looking into this resource.  I suggest taking that warning seriously. Next time you update your “about me” section, ask yourself: what’s MY space saying?

Myspace has become such an obsession with adolescents that I truly believe without it, we would be doing a lot more useful things with our time. 

My original intention for creating my Myspace page was to get in touch with friends who have gone away and are no longer easy to get a hold of, but as I logged on about every other day, I started to realize just how much time I was actually spending just looking at others’ Myspace pages. 

Think about how much we would get done if there wasn’t TV or iPods, now Myspace just adds one more distraction to the list. 

If we only took our focus off of other people and their Myspace pages and put it onto ourselves, who knows what we could accomplish with all of this extra time.