I was preparing to write this column (read: mindlessly looking through Facebook) with a totally different premise when an idea came to me. I noticed that among my soon-to-be graduating friends there was a dearth of party pictures. It seemed that everything was sanitary, clean and very politically correct. Gone were photographs of beer pong, people in mid-chug and anything that could be construed as people having fun.

Let me be blunt: This infuriates me. Facebook itself is probably a little too pervasive, but that doesn't change the fact that a great many people have a good time using its features. Most of the people I know who spend a great deal of time on the site are looking at their friends' pictures. Why deprive your friends of a little well-spent procrastination time?

The answer lies in the real world. More to the point, the answer is the real world. Too many seniors looking for jobs and juniors looking for internships are worried that prospective employers are checking their Facebook profiles for scandalous pictures that they're taking down everything that suggests they have a personality.

Listen, unless you've been immortalized on Facebook snorting the happy sugar off the chest of a woman of ill repute, you should probably rest easy. Chances are, you aren't doing anything that hasn't been done before, probably by the very people scouting you.

There are two larger issues that come into play in this situation, both of which were suggested to me by very wise women. First, why should it matter to a company whether or not you're consuming alcohol or having a good time in your pictures? If you aren't planning on showing up to work drunk, it probably doesn't matter too much.

If employers are going to make serious hiring decisions based on a few pictures taken on St. Patrick's Day, they're probably not the kind of people you want to be working for anyway. Facebook profiling would seem to be a rather blunt instrument for picking the best potential employee, at least to anyone with a brain bigger than a nickel.

More to the point, a real downside of this Facebook censoring is that companies may hire Joey Job Hunter, who, though he is a borderline alcoholic with a drug problem, managed to get himself together enough to clean up his Facebook account. This would come at the expense of Janey Job Seeker, who, while she has a few pictures up showing her mid-keg-stand, is otherwise a very hard working, driven person with lofty career aspirations.

Companies should want to hire you because they like the real you, flaws and all, not because they're impressed with the airbrushed version you present to them. Imagine their disappointment when you don't turn out to be so great. Conversely, imagine how happy the people at the pizza joint will be with their hard-working delivery driver, the unfortunate soul who didn't make the choice to sanitize him or herself for the benefit of corporate executives.

The second issue that was brought to my attention is a little more troubling. What gives employers the right to look at Facebook pictures in the first place? Sure, Facebook is a public site, and users can adjust their settings to make sure certain people only see certain things, but when did it become the right of companies to see what prospective employees were doing?

If an employer was trying to find out everything about you and what you did outside of work by sending private investigators after you, wouldn't that constitute more than a slight invasion of privacy? Checking people out to see what they do with their free time is the same kind of thing. It's a very dicey case of possible invasion of privacy, and it is a blatant abuse by companies of something that is supposed to be a fairly innocent networking site.

Even if you disagree with me and you're still going to yank down any pictures that might not portray you in the best light, at least stop and think for a second what you're doing. You're lying about yourself because you're worried that a company might not like that you like to drink heavily with your friends sometimes. If that doesn't seem excessive to you, you've probably read George Orwell's 1984 a few too many times.

I'd like to kindly suggest to all people trying to appear as bland as possible on Facebook to consider an alternative method. Either leave the site (pretty difficult, I know) or just change your privacy settings so that there's no way a company can see you. It isn't that hard and it allows you to be a lot more true to yourself and your friends.

And in case you haven't realized it by now, those are the people whose opinions really matter. Any rich snob can cut you a paycheck, but not everyone can hold the funnel for you. Those kinds of people deserve to see those pictures of you, at your very best.