The hour badly spent

A recent study has discovered that a Facebook profile really does reveal all you need to know about a person.

The Internet has provided members of a younger generation an outlet through which to express themselves and tell the world who they are. To be “single” or “in a relationship,” writing on someone else’s profile, being accepted as Dane Cook’s friend — these are all ways in which members of Generation Me define themselves.

However, there seems to be a trend of growing egos and self-absorption stemming from this surge of online activity.

Correlation does not equal causality. I was a self-absorbed jackweed* long before I started a blog and plenty of other self-absorbed jackweeds just like me existed way before the intertubez. We will still be around to post our party photos all over the next revolutionary medium.

Researchers at the University of Georgia conducted a study to test if social networking sites like Facebook.com and MySpace increased levels of narcissism, according to a Sept. 22 press release from the university’s news service.

As part of the study, researchers asked 130 Facebook users to fill out personality questionnaires and analyze the content of their profiles.

A second group of untrained observers [ed. note: Joe Plumbers] then analyzed the same profiles and determined how narcissistic the profiles’ owners were.

According to the press release, the research showed the more friends and wall posts a person had correlated with increased narcissism, the trait of excessive self-love or self-worship.

The flashiness of someone’s MySpace is proportional to his or her IRL pompousness. Stroke of genius, that is. The only thing I can add is that when I’m offline, all my excellent features still glow like a post-coital pornstar. I’ve got my roguish smile, devilish charm, elegant manners, and fine tight ass. It’s not narcissism. It’s narcissawesome.

In the release, Laura Buffardi, graduate student in psychology at Georgia and leader of the study, said this is similar to how narcissists act in the real world, forming numerous, shallow relationships with others. Narcissistic personal Web page users also tend to use flashier, more self-promoting profile pictures, the study said.

I wouldn’t necessarily call them "relationships." They were more like one-night deals. A few superpokes, a few comments, and then bam, time to hit up another network. You know how it is.

*Thanks to Smallville for letting me rip off "jackweed."

[K-State Collegian]

Last year the campus was gripped by a shortage of smug blonde rich girls. Brave student leaders immediately rolled up their sleeves and got to work on the greatest crisis of our age.

The efforts of the Greek Affairs employees, students and chapter advisers have not gone in vain. The recent changes they made to improve sorority recruitment resulted in an increase in retention, as well as time and money saved for students, staff and volunteers involved in the Sorority Recruitment Week.
“Recruitment went excellently,” said Shawn Eagleburger, assistant director for Greek Affairs. “We started and finished with more women than we ever have at K-State.” [ed. note: Heh.]
Eagleburger, who is also the primary sorority adviser, said he was impressed with the success of Recruitment Week, which took place August 17-21. Eagleburger and other staff and students changed a few aspects of the week to make it more beneficial, cheaper and less stressful for all those involved, he said.
At the end of the week, the sororities were able to offer 525 women membership and retained 86 percent of the women throughout the process, he said.

[Source: Deborah Muhwezi, K-State Collegian]