Reporters often get a bad wrap for being too nosey.
Most of the time, it's all an effort to get the "scoop" on a news story before the competitor. When a competitor beats you to it, the reporter is said to be "scooped."
There's a little reporter inside all of us - some of us just make a degree out of it.
Facebook's controversial "News Feed" feature has eliminated the need for a social beat reporter in our lives. As opinion on the feature spread through the viral tubes of the Internet Tuesday, a completely new perspective of privacy, life and technology was aired to the public.
Tuesday was historic.
No, nothing's changed, really.
In the words of Creator Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook's Blog, "This is information people used to dig for on a daily basis, nicely reorganized and summarized so people can learn about the people they care about."
Tuesday we realized what we've really been doing this whole time.
The news feed simply added transparency to the shield of our addiction. "Facebook Stalking" wasn't a taboo topic - everyone was aware of its presence.
We knew we spied on our exes, gawked at the hot classmate in the front row's vacation pictures and feverously checked profile walls to see who was saying what.
It was easy to sneak under the radar with new friends and secret acquaintances. We wanted to know when our distant friends had an affair or ended a relationship because of one.
We enjoyed doing the hunting for sources ourselves ... and then we lost control.
We were comfortable with our information gathering habits until they were brought to the limelight. The false sense of security allowing us to sneak movements past our friends is gone.
This information was always public, though; it's the change in the way we receive the "news" that is causing such a revolt among students.
It's easy to find out what's happening in our lives- almost too easy.
Perhaps most concerning is how we're attempting to hide and shield ourselves from what we apparently think is not-so-trustworthy outlet - our friends.
What the hell are we so afraid of our friends knowing about us?
Our generation hit the breaking point of information overload Tuesday. Oddly enough, it's the plethora of information about our own lives that's driving us up the cyber-walls.
Users are fighting back with the same medium they're wishing to control. We're effectively trying to get the beast to kill itself. In turn, we're clicking the life out of the "refresh" button, pulling in more page views and ad revenue for the very site students are protesting.
OK, so perhaps this generation still has a bit to learn from protestors circa 1960s.
As the membership count ticked to 100,000 in the early hours of Wednesday morning, I couldn't help but watch and wait. I read the wall posts and the message boards. I interacted only by using my refresh button to see the tally climb higher.
There was an odd sense of online community at that hour. Nothing special was going to happen: No bells. No confetti. No, not even a change in Facebook's ways.
It was just a number attached to a feeling of accomplishment. All for a petty networking site that we agreed to opt-in to.
Take into consideration what real progress could be made if this effort were for an issue with real moral or political consequence. That would be impressive.
In our on-demand and - as this proves - in-demand culture, we, the nation's collegiate scholars, are angered because someone else figured out how to report on our personal lives better than we could.
See, there is a little reporter hiding in every one of us.
Looks like we just got scooped.
Write to Dave at heydave@bsudailynews.com
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