Facebook in the flesh

From The New yorker magazine (this is the whole article):
Social Studies
by Michael Schulman September 17, 2007
Jean Baudrillard, as any philosophy student will tell you, theorized that, in the postmodern world, “the territory no longer precedes the map.” In other words, if you are a member of N.Y.U.’s class of 2011, you probably arrived in New York City with a preëxisting web of soon-to-be college friends from Facebook, the online social-networking site. You know which of them count “Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle” among their favorite movies, which are interested in punk rock or organic food, and which belong to such groups as “My Pimpin’ Is Immaculate, Hard Like Calculus!” and “I Went to a Public High School . . . Bitch.” You and your friends may or may not have actually met.

The peril in getting to know classmates on the computer is that incoming undergraduates may forget how to do so in real life. That was the thinking behind “Facebook in the Flesh,” a seminar held during N.Y.U.’s freshman orientation. “Meeting new people face-to-face can be . . . intimidating,” a brochure read. “This fun, interactive workshop will get everyone talking as we build social networks in person.” The session took place at the Kimmel Center—it was scheduled at the same time as “Dude, Where’s My Class?”—and drew about thirty-five students, who spent the initial minutes sitting side by side in uncomfortable silence. Eventually, two girls struck up a conversation and realized, to their delight, that they were both from Long Island. (“Suffolk County?” “Me, too!”)

“Here’s what in-person networking is,” David Schachter, an assistant dean, began. “It’s face-to-face. It’s brief. It works best when there’s virtually nothing at stake except a few minutes of someone else’s time. And it’s social. It happens in the same space.”

Schachter went on to describe the benefits of live interaction: “Is there a way that, perhaps, if you’re trying to find out what the great falafel place is, you might be able to do it through your social network?” No one mentioned that this can easily be done online. “What else do you think networking with peers can help you find out about?”

“Things to do?”

“Requirements you might have missed online?”

“Fascinating things about other people?”

Schachter asked the group to pair off, with the goal of conducting a casual six-minute conversation. He handed out a worksheet with pointers (“Ask questions. Try to discover commonalities and/or connections with the other person”) and provided a few sample questions, in case of a jam. (“What drew you to N.Y.U.?” “What do you think of this workshop so far?”) A visitor was partnered with Mike Scolnic, whose interests, according to his Facebook profile, include shoes, football, and cool breezes on hot days.

“I’m a Facebook addict,” Scolnic said. “I already have nine hundred friends at N.Y.U. Facebook sent me a warning that said, ‘Stop friending people.’ ” (Friend, v.: to add to one’s roster of Facebook buddies.) “I guess I didn’t take it as seriously as I should have, because last week my account was disabled for four days.”

Life in the dorm, he said, has been odd. “In the elevator, people who I’m friends with will say hi to me and I’ll have no idea who they are. Don’t get me wrong, I think it is useful. I met two girls on Facebook who came over to our room once we got to N.Y.U. We hung out with them, we drank with them, we watched a movie. But for every situation where it helped me there’ve been, like, five or six that have just been really awkward.”

Schachter blew a whistle. “Thoughts? Feelings? Reactions?” he said. “Was it hard?”

“Harder than Facebook,” one girl said.

“If we were going to do this again, is there anything that you would do differently, what I call an ‘upgrade’ or an ‘enhancement’?”

“I wish we could poke people,” someone said. Schachter looked confused.

The student elaborated: “If you want to let someone know that you want to talk to them on Facebook, you poke them.”

“Got it,” Schachter said. “So is there a way to poke someone in person?”

A girl suggested shyly, “Smile at them?”

After the session, Schachter admitted that he had never been on Facebook. He said that when he was a freshman at N.Y.U., in 1978, he met his best friend while signing up for classes the first week of school. They hit it off, he recalled, when they started talking in the registration line and realized that they were both from Long Island.