It was referred to not only as an addiction, but a disease by The Collegiate Times.

Facebook is an online directory connecting students through schools across the country.

When people join Facebook.com, they are not just joining one large social network, he or she is affiliating with a specific branch of the site that includes other students specifically from a certain school.

“I heard about it on the radio,” said Krystal Thurston, freshman psychology major. “I’ll probably check it out.”

Other students, however, have already started using Facebook on campus.

“It’s taken over my life,” said Johnna Albrecht, freshman undecided major. “My roommates got it and they had it for a few days before I even knew about it, but once you get into it, it’s really cool. I’ve made some friends that I hang out with and some are just computer friends.”

When someone clicks on “social net”, ten random users from that social net are displayed. A “social net” is a group of users whose privacy settings allow a subscriber to view their information. To make things more interesting, it is limited to those who submitted pictures.

“I think it’s really cool because I can stay in touch with friends from North Carolina while making friends here on campus,” said Bijal Patel, sophomore accounting major. “I’ve had it for almost a week now and I go on once a day to check messages.”

Around campus “Do you Facebook?” is heard.

Students said they enjoy being able to look up a person at Facebook and view their picture and see their hobbies and what friends they are connected with.

Facebook also allows students to search for people by their favorite movie, book or what town they are from.

“I log on everyday,” said Jason Snyder, junior radiology major. “I have about 29 friends from other schools and 18 from Southern.”

When accepted as someone’s friend, a person is given access into their personal lives, majors, hobbies, political views, relationship status and more.

Even if someone is not into Facebook for the camaraderie, it has other uses. A student can join groups, advertise parties and connect with people from classes.

However, some students find themselves pausing in the middle of homework and refreshing their homepage on Facebook just to see if they have pending group or friend confirmations, pokes or messages.

“I think it’s getting out of control,” said Houston McDaniel, freshman kinesiology major.

The company’s founder is Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg. He launched www.facebook.com in February of 2004 with two of his roommates, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes.