The Brown & White

Welcome back, spring breakers. Hopefully you've all arrived in Bethlehem with a deep tan, strong hangover, souvenir shot glasses and some absurd stories. Even if you don't remember all of them clearly, don't you worry.

Facebook, meet spring break. Spring break, meet Facebook.

Spring break is definitely not what it used to be. What happens in Cabo no longer stays in Cabo.

Instead, your indiscretions are plastered in Facebook albums for the whole World Wide Web to see. De-tag all you want, but the pictures remain and are a constant reminder of pleasant and not-so-pleasant times.

When I was home during winter break, my mom decided to whip out her old photo album from spring breaks during her college years. There were only a couple of pages with a few scattered, faded Polaroid shots of her friends, just enough to remind her where they were, what they did and how much fun they had.

There were no tags with her friends' names, ridiculous captions or album names like "Spring Break 2008: Take your clothes off and I'll take a trillion pictures!"

Our generation is lucky and cursed at the same time with all the technology we have in comparison to other generations. Thanks to digital cameras and iPhones, we can basically capture every moment of our lives and share them on the web. We're all addicted.

Right now, a lot of my friends are reading this knowing that out of anyone, I'm the biggest paparazzi when it comes to capturing every moment of our college career.

I am so thankful I have concrete evidence of people's ridiculous facial expressions or an outrageous Halloween costume I could only pull off once, because the stories just won't do it justice.

But this blessing can also be a curse as we've started to see in every aspect of society. Name a celebrity, and it's almost guaranteed there is a picture of them that is less than classy.

Our parents and grandparents say how our generation has no shame anymore, and that when they were growing up, people in the spotlight were poised and modest.

Maybe this is true, but more than likely there were nights when older generations of celebrities were trashed, had sneaky affairs and danced around in their underwear. But without a digital camera or cell phones in everyone's pockets, there was no evidence.

Now, every time a bad picture or video of a celebrity surfaces on the internet, they defend themselves by saying how life is when you're in the spotlight because you can't escape the cameras.

Well, the cameras are not going away, so if we want to prove ourselves to be a classier generation than we have shown to be so far, we have to be more aware of what we do, what we say and how we present ourselves (especially if there's any chance of the moment being posted in your friend's next Facebook photo album).

I doubt there is one person on campus who didn't experience an "oh, crap" moment during spring break.

And, if I happen to be friends with a friend who is friends with you on Facebook, I've probably already seen a picture of it.

It seems this year, people arrived home from the airport, threw down their bags and uploaded their pictures to Facebook to compete for the prize of who took the most fantastically, unbelievably, extraordinarily, fabulously crazy pictures during spring break.

But already, I've heard of people getting caught in photographs cheating on their significant others, making out with friends' crushes and other such faux pas. I've also seen pictures of people looking more drugged up than Robert Downey, Jr.

I don't think it's an exaggeration to say some people's spring break pictures rival those taken of the rich, famous and troubled. And that's not something I think anyone should want to be complimented on.

As I said before, cameras are not going to go away, and for now, neither is Facebook. As prominent as the Web site has become, most of us communicate with old high school friends through Facebook alone. If someone were to judge you based solely on what's on your Facebook profile, would you be proud, or would it be another "oh, crap" moment?

So before thanking your friends for capturing all the spring break moments you blacked out for, you might want to think about the likelihood that all those moments look good for your reputation. Then, get to de-tagging.