“It’s not official unless it’s on Facebook.”

You know the phrase is true. Did you hook up with a new boyfriend lately? Get a new job? Start grad school? Yeah, you probably updated your Facebook to let everyone know about it. Facebook has acquired a terrifically powerful role in our culture, one which legitimizes every facet of our lives.

As much as passing the bar exam officially makes you an attorney, updating your relationship status officially makes you one-half of the new “It” couple in your social network. Bring on the wall-comments and congratulations! But what about when Facebook users begin posting personal details that don’t merit digital high-fives?

Such is the case with a new trend in Facebook groups that actually promote such eating disorders as anorexia nervosa and bulemia nervosa. Think about your average, “Hell Yeah I Went To Public School!” group and channel all of that enthusiasm towards the idea of starving yourself. Imagine scrolling through a list of your friend’s groups and finding one like “Ana Boot Camp” (which has recently been disabled by the Facebook administration) which attracts users who view anorexia as a fitness goal, not an eating disorder. They’ve even co-opted the name “anorexia” to just “Ana,” as a way of reinforcing the idea of anorexia positively. Members of “pro-Ana” groups collaborate on starvation plans and look to one another for “thinspiration.” Read More »

The Facebook Profile says a lot. It conveniently lists your education info, work info, relationship status, favorite books, movies, activities, and interests. But psychologists at the University of Georgia are finding that how you use your Facebook pages can say a lot more than the information you willingly put out on the net.

A new study, the results of which appear in the October issue of the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, suggests that Facebook profiles can mirror the narcissism of their owners.

Besides being synonymous with being “egotistical,” “self-centered,” and “self-absorbed,” narcissism affects the ability of a person to form healthy, long-term relationships. According to W. Keith Campbell, a professor at the University of Georgia who co-authored the study in question, “Narcissists are using Facebook the same way they use their other relationships – for self promotion with an emphasis on quantity of over quality.” Read More »

Rarely while I am writing a story for CC do I find myself changing my mind about the subject halfway through. However, as I sit here with my can of sugar free Red Bull trying to muster up some energy for whatever kind of weird crowd will be at the bars during the summer on Thirsty Thursday, I had a sudden change of heart.

I’ve been spending a lot of time at music festivals this summer, like waaay more than anyone who isn’t obsessed with Jerry Garcia and The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test should, so I have run into a few very interesting characters, to say the least.

Now, I’m not saying that I’m not a whole fan of the hippie lifestyle. I’m extremely liberal and I love me some tye dye & hemp necklaces & moonshine just as much as the next chick. I just prefer to have clean underwear and hair that smells more like strawberries than Mary Jane. But the one thing I have never found appealing are the dreadlocked, banjo-playing, I-ate-way-too-many-mushrooms-once kind of crazies you run into at festivals – who basically live and breathe the whole scene.

I have a best friend; however, who is notorious for falling in lurrrve with every boy who writes her a sonnet and accompanies on his harmonica or enchants her with stories of touring with The String Cheese Incident. She’s a sucker, that’s for sure. I always wondered: How is it humanly possible that my friend who is gorgeous, intelligent & about to graduate with a B.A. going to seriously consider dating someone who is jobless, degree-less and (presumably) showerless? Read More »

The other night, while eating dinner with a friend at one of the 4874 Thai restaurants in my neighborhood, we got into a discussion about being single.

“I’ve decided that deep down, no girl really wants to be alone,” my friend announced as she cut into her spring rolls. “Even if she says she doesn’t want a boyfriend, if the right guy stepped into her life, she’d take him.”

“What about So-And-So?” I asked, naming another mutual friend. “She kept saying how happy she was without a guy, and how she was too busy anyway. She seemed fine.”

“Didn’t you hear? Last month she landed a dude.” My friend handed me half of her spring roll, using the other half to point in my direction. “She bumped into this guy at a party and two weeks later she was updating her Facebook status to read So-And-So is totally in love.”

“Ew. Really?” Inwardly, I was jealous. When was the last time I had updated my Facebook status to say I was totally in love? Never, I realized, since the last time I was in love, Facebook hadn’t even been invented.

“Really.” My friend declared. “Us women all need to face the fact that being single just isn’t our natural stasis.” Read More »