Freshman tries Facebook, finds it surprisingly useless

September 14, 2016 — by Victor Liu

According to Freshman Jeffrey Xu’s “About” section on Facebook, his achievements include being a former Dean at Redwood Middle School, a former sports journalist at the Krusty Krab and a graduate of “nunya business” at San Diego Miramar College.

 

Freshman Jeffrey Xu has a head start in life. Although he’s only a high school freshman, as stated by his Facebook profile’s introduction, the rest of his biography is remarkable for an average ninth grader.

According to Xu’s “About” section on Facebook, his achievements include being a former Dean at Redwood Middle School, a former sports journalist at the Krusty Krab and a graduate of “nunya business” at San Diego Miramar College.

But as it turns out that, Xu isn’t some super-savant who has finished college before starting high school. Instead, he’s a 14-year-old who’s new to Facebook or at least semi-new to it (he first used Facebook in third-grade for the then-popular game “Backyard Monsters”), and his bio’s white lies are the remnants of a third-grader’s humor.

“I put [the bio] there because one of my friends did it, and I thought it was cool, but now that I think about it, it’s pretty stupid,” Xu said. “I probably did that when I was in third grade, so please don’t judge me on that.”

Now, as a high school student, Xu has returned to Facebook because of advice from older students to join online school groups.

While Xu has good intentions for wanting to restart his Facebook journey, he has gone off-course, using Facebook “to hit people up to play Super Smash Bros.”

However, Xu claims to use Facebook for only 30 minutes a day, a small figure when compared with the hours many other students tend to lose on the site.

“I just check my feed to see what’s going on, and I do some ‘Happy Birthday’ wishes,” Xu said. “[And] if it’s someone that I know very well, then I put a picture of them doing something [silly].”

Unlike many of his schoolmates, Xu also intends on keeping his Facebook browsing time to a minimum.

“[Facebook]’s not really that important. What’s important is what you do in real life,” Xu said. “I play the piano, I play badminton, I prank call people, I do math, I do Chinese and I do Boy Scouts. Interacting with people in real life is the truest way to communicate face-to-face.”

 
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