Okay, how many of you spent all of winter break on thefacebook.com? Don’t try to deny it; I saw your profiles on the “recently updated” list day after day.

Er, I mean...I definitely did not waste away my entire vacation checking to see which of my friends developed such a love for Late Night with Conan O’Brien during their time at home that they felt compelled to add it to their profiles for everybody to see.

Facebook has single-handedly made obsolete whatever refined procrastination tools college students of the past used to put off work. (What did they use?) Pre-meds have Facebook to thank when they fail their chemistry midterms — instead of studying polar bonds, they spend the night before the test studying the variety of Friends groups to see which one is the best fit for them. (Fact: There are only three groups for this amazing TV show, yet the fervent debate over popping one’s collar has spawned no fewer than eight Facebook groups.) The next generation of doctors will have the same solution for every patient’s malady: “Poke him and see if he responds.”

I won’t lie; I’m just as guilty of Facebook-procrastination as the next person. (Fact: There are 1,446 members in the group “Stanford Students For Procrastination.”) The hour before my I-Hum final, did I cram as many John Locke quotes into my head as I possibly could? Did I prepare an outline for my essay? No. I Facebooked. What exactly I Facebooked, I couldn’t tell you. That may have been the day that I joined the group “Lovers and Stealers of Special K With Red Berries From the Dining Hall!” (Fact: Special K with Red Berries is the best cereal known to man.)

Aside from enabling students to celebrate a shared interest in a certain epicurean delight, Facebook does have other almost-as-useful features, such as...wait, sorry; I lost my train of thought. (Fact: Browsing Facebook is more fun than writing a column.)

At any rate, Facebook has been a great boon to the stalking community here at Stanford. (Fact: The group “Stalkers Anonymous” has 41 members.) With just a first name and a decent memory for faces, that guy you flirted with at a party becomes that guy whose dorm you camp outside of and “coincidentally” run into on his way to class. Courtesy of Facebook, you know exactly which dorm that is and what classes those are.

It’s a little bit scary just how easily accessible (i.e. stalk-able) a person makes herself simply by creating a Facebook account. Sure, it’s convenient for your friends to be able to look up your screenname and phone number or to share pictures from Friday night with everyone you know. (On second thought, maybe that’s not such a good thing...) Facebook is great for keeping in touch with your partner from last quarter’s group project, the guy from your high school who you were only semi-friendly with and that kid you had a random conversation with while waiting in line at the post office. But the thought of all of your personal information in the hands of the wrong person is downright creepy (see previous paragraph; add points depending on the sketchiness of said person).

Nevertheless, everybody seems perfectly willing to overlook the possibility (which remains, as far as I know, entirely theoretical) that anything but good could ever stem from the Facebook phenomenon. Despite the fact that it has pretty much already taken over the world, it somehow keeps uncovering and dragging in stragglers; even those most vehemently opposed to it at the beginning are folding under peer pressure. My own sister, a once firm opponent of Facebook, admitted that it “might be helpful so I can know who is in my classes” and succumbed to the giant amoeba which she had managed to avoid for so long. God help her.

God help us all.

If you want to get in touch with Stephanie and are one of the few people without a Facebook account, e-mail her (and tell her how you survive without it) at salessi@stanford.edu. If you do have Facebook, send her a message, and she will most likely check and respond to it within five minutes. Just please don’t stalk her.