I’ve noticed lately that there have been a lot of Facebook pages popping up in which students post about Stony Brook. Whether it’s Stony Brook Compliments, Stony Brook Suggestions or Stony Brook Secrets, it seems like everyone has something to say about our school, for better or for worse.

And for the most part, that’s a good thing. We should be recognizing people for their achievements and giving credit to the groups of people  that make our college experience better. We should also be able to ask for help and expect to get useful responses and feedback from our peers.

But in true internet fashion, most of the positive posts get bogged down by people making stupid comments and just complaining about everything under the sun.

Let’s talk Stony Brook Secrets. The page is a great idea, and it probably has really helped a lot of people who have legitimate problems that they need to voice. For that reason, the page can be really inspiring and shows that everyone out there has issues and that there people in our school willing to listen and lend a hand.

And then there’s the other side of the coin. Next to posts where people ask for help with problems like sexual abuse and eating disorders, others post things like “I hate girls with small heads” or my personal favorite, “I wonder why guys like me. Is it because I’m pre-med?” I’m all for joking around, but it doesn’t seem fair to turn a Facebook page with an actual purpose into a place to post weird comments.

The same rule applies for Stony Brook Suggestions. According to its about page, SB Suggestions “allows our community to work together to improve campus.” And that’s a great idea. So why are so many people just needlessly whining?

From constant posts about Campus Dining to construction, buses, and annoying SOLAR messages the page is filled with people offering up complaints with far too little suggestions for improvement. I think one problem is that most people who post complaints don’t understand how much work and effort goes into making a place like Stony Brook run smoothly. Clearly, it isn’t an easy task to please 24,000 students, and for the most part, everyone is trying their best to make Stony Brook run successfully. We can’t expect everything to be perfect all the time. That’s just not how life works. After all, the page is Stony Brook Suggestions, not Stony Brook Complaints.

That we all spend way too much time on Facebook. Don’t get me wrong, I spend hours on Facebook every day, and sometimes I wonder why I waste so much time staring at my news feed where there are much better things to do.

But it’s really not cool to poke fun at people with real problems or to add to the constant pity party of how bad our school is.

Let’s keep the jokes and awkward sex comments to 9Gag and Imgur. Pages like Stony Brook Secrets should be for legitimate secrets (duh) and SB Suggestions should be for actual suggestions for improvement. If you want to whine, keep it on your own news feed.