Helen of Troy–whose face so famously launched a thousand ships–had nothing on today’s college students. With the advent of the online social network Facebook, students’ countenances are launching thousands, possibly even millions of hits and clicks a day. Sure, a virtual hit isn’t a mythological ship, but as any college student will tell you, a Facebook hit is where it’s at.

No one knows this better than Megan Shepter, B.S. ’06, who majored in psychology. “I’m addicted to Facebook. I think it’s identical to video games except it’s geared toward women because women are social creatures,” Shepter says, applying some of what she’s learned in psych class. “Women are consistently conscious of what everyone’s up to, and that’s why Facebook is a useful tool. I’m permanently signed on.”

“Last year I went to the Bahamas for spring break, and I didn’t know what to do. I kept saying, ‘I need to log onto Facebook,’” confesses Judson Dry, a senior international finance and marketing major who is homecoming chair and treasurer of Interfraternity Council. “I probably check my Facebook page 20 times a day.”

Welcome to Facebook, a distinctively 21st-century technology that has swept through college campuses faster than a DSL connection. Facebook is thematically similar to MySpace.com, one of the top-ten most trafficked spots on the Internet. The biggest difference is that MySpace is open to anyone with an e-mail address, while Facebook requires members to be affiliated with a college or a high school. The brainchild of Harvard sophomore (now dropout) Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook is becoming the one thing that students cannot live without.

Founded in 2004, Facebook is a digital version of those once-indispensable photo guides of incoming college freshmen and has quickly expanded to include students at more than 2,100 colleges. In the fall of 2005, high schools were invited to join. Facebook now has 7 million members, mostly students, but alumni, faculty, and staff who have an “edu” e-mail address also can join. The site is free to users and financed by advertising.

Eric Arneson, UM’s associate director of residence halls, has seen the impact of Facebook’s presence on campus. “I’d guess that four out of five students at the University of Miami are on Facebook. It is their primary mode of communication,” he says. Like all online communities, Facebook serves up its own special menu of quirky offerings. The “wall,” arguably Facebook’s most popular feature, is the place on every member’s site where friends can post comments and have virtual conversations. And then there’s the “poke,” sort of like a wink or a wave without saying much more.

Facebook members also can check the “pulse” to see what books, movies, and music are topping the charts at their school. They can post pictures of themselves and their friends. And if someone decides to “friend” you, it means they send you a request to be their friend. Once you confirm that this person is indeed your friend, voila! he or she is added to your friend list. Dry, a self-proclaimed “very social guy,” has 660 friends at the University of Miami. There’s even a feature that allows members to create specialized groups of Facebookers who share hobbies and jokes.

“Last year Facebook really, really took off,” Dry says. “I’m a peer counselor for the School of Business Administration, and I have a group of eight freshmen whom I help to develop networks and write résumés. I have some students who don’t respond in other ways, like by phone or by e-mail, but they always respond through Facebook. It’s opened up a whole new social communication avenue that wasn’t available before.”

While Facebook is an effective communication tool, some administrators and parents are concerned that it can be used as a communication crutch.

“People don’t talk anymore,” Arneson says. “We have students who will argue with each other on the computer, and they’re two feet away, right next to each other. Our students aren’t nearly as prepared to deal with conflict as they were ten years ago. That’s where our staff come into play and help students to interact face to face. But students love it. And you can’t fight it, so you might as well join them and understand it.”

As editor in chief of The Miami Hurricane last year, senior journalism and business major Patricia Mazzei covered and assigned several stories about Facebook. “Facebook does enable students to communicate more, but in some ways it’s worse communication,” Mazzei says. “We have problems with reporters who would rather conduct interviews via e-mail, and that just doesn’t work. I do use Facebook as a work tool but mostly for research. I think people should be more concerned about what they put on there.”

Greg Singleton, associate dean of students and director of judicial affairs, agrees. “Students need to be aware of the way they depict themselves. I don’t log on to Facebook looking for violations of University policy, but if they are brought to our attention, we are obligated to do something about it.”

Singleton, who has participated in national academic conferences addressing the Facebook phenomenon, notes that the University of Miami’s approach is on par with that of other institutions. He also reminds students that some employers go on Facebook to check out graduating students who have applied for a job. Still, Singleton acknowledges Facebook as an increasingly popular student life component. “Students can use it to post upcoming activities and awards that they’ve won. Recently some students used it to create a group for women interested in learning more about sororities,” he says.

It’s also a way for long-lost friends to find each other. “I went to high school in Europe, and I’ve been able to find over half of my graduating class. That never would’ve happened if we didn’t have this international networking tool,” Shepter says.

Facebook’s main draw, Shepter notes, is that it enables people to interact with each other without inhibitions. “You can poke someone, and it’s a way of saying, ‘Hi, I’m here.’ But if you walk around campus and see someone who’s cute, you can’t really do that. With Facebook, it’s no harm, no foul, and no rejection factor.”

While she is hesitant to date someone who randomly “poked” her on Facebook, Shepter does have firsthand experience with one of Facebook’s common uses: the online breakup. “When you log onto Facebook and decide to end a relationship, it asks you, ‘Are you sure you want to break up with so-and-so?’ And you say ‘Yes.’ If your friends click on ‘My Friends,’ it will come to their attention immediately. A lot of times you can see who breaks up that night. It adds a whole new element to my generation.”

Jeff Jenkins, Interfraternity Council president and a senior majoring in international finance and religious studies, was initially reluctant to sign on. “I didn’t know how to use it. Of course, eventually I became part of the pop culture.”

Jenkins, who logs on every day, says that he would not use it as a dating tool. “In my opinion it doesn’t replace personal interaction.”

For him, one of the best features is the ability to “type something like Pink Floyd, my favorite band, into the search box, and it will connect me with everyone on campus who likes Pink Floyd. And then there are the notes. If I miss a class I can click on the class and message a student to ask what I missed,” he says.

Many students use Facebook for note sharing. “I went to a wedding and missed two days of class, so I clicked on the person who sits next to me and asked her if she could e-mail me her notes,” Shepter says. “That’d never happen without Facebook.”

It remains to be seen what sort of long-lasting effects Facebook will have on today’s students and tomorrow’s professionals. But all the students included in this story agreed that there is one feature they all love: the birthday alarm. “I always forget my friends’ birthdays, but with Facebook, that’s not even an option. When you first log on it tells you all the birthdays coming up for the next three days,” Dry says. “On my birthday I got almost a hundred messages on my wall.”

And who wouldn’t want to get “poked” and messaged by a hundred of their closest friends on their birthday? Who wouldn’t want to have a face that launched a hundred or maybe even a thousand hits?

Jill Bauer is a book author and freelance writer in Miami, Florida.