Newswise — Colleges and universities spend hundreds of hours matching freshman roommates. Problems develop, however, just as soon as would-be roomies eye each other before move-in day on social networking websites like Facebook or MySpace and don't like what they see.
"Students have contacted my office asking for a room change because they do not believe they are going to get along with their assigned roommates based on information gathered from one of the social networks," says Paul Kingsbury, director of residence life at Delaware Valley College in Doylestown, PA.
"Most schools don't do room assignments until pretty late now to discourage the 'musical beds' process that occurs once the assignments go out," adds Chuck Colby, director of residence life at Mansfield University in Mansfield, PA.
Assigning roommates always has been a delicate art for colleges. On one hand they want roommates who can get along. In addition, however, most schools see roommate matching as a way to introduce their students to the world's diversity. Not everyone is like you. And that's okay. Still, they pore over housing forms trying to make reasonable matches.
"We find that by spending numerous hours during the summer reading these forms, it significantly reduces the amount of time my staff spends resolving roommate conflicts throughout the fall semester," explains Jason Kuntz, director of residential life at Lebanon Valley College in Annville, PA.
But all of that hard work can be for naught when students turn to the social networks for clues about what their roommate will be like.
"The vast majority of (roommate change) requests fall into two categories: interests and lifestyles," says Delaware Valley's Kingsbury. "An example: one student listens to rap while the other prefers country music. One likes to party and the other is studious. From a lifestyle perspective it is usually based on schedules. The most basic is a student athlete (rooming with) someone who isn't an athlete. These schedule differences often cause conflict."
Now, many students entering their first year in college don't receive their e-mail addresses until late in the summer. At first this prevented students from using Facebook as a roommate screener because the networking site required an ".edu" email account. This past year, however, Facebook opened its site for anyone to use. MySpace has always been available to anyone with an e-mail address.
"My main concern with these networking sites is that students are basing decisions on perceptions of lifestyle," Kingsbury says. "Are they making decisions on aesthetic grounds or personal prejudices? That is, are they judging a person based on how he or she looks or dresses? Also, do prejudices play a role in regards to race or religion?"
And if roommate disaster does strike, despite the best efforts of colleges to make good matches, where do the students turn? To Facebook and MySpace, of course.
"We have noticed an increase during the school year of students using Facebook to seek out new roommates when their problem cannot be solved by their current roommate," says Lebanon Valley's Kuntz.
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