Usually a place where friends and family go to keep in touch, Facebook was a topic of controversy when it unveiled its changes to the site to it’s millions of users in late September.

Bakersfield College students had many opinions on these new changes made to the social networking site.

The main disruption with students was how abrupt the changes occurred.

“I don’t like that they changed it all at once, not little by little,” said criminal justice major Socorro Gomez.

Business major Scott Lipscomb, 20, who uses the site for mostly networking purposes, agreed.

“I would have liked it better if it had been more gradual,” said Lipscomb. “Give me some time to get used to it.”

Students who spend a lot of time on the site had the most to say about their distaste for the updates, which included a timeline feature that allows users to see what they’re friends are doing online in real-time, a top story feature that is placed at the top of the Newsfeed, and larger wall post pictures.

“I got kind of mad. It was like they were trying to be MySpace,” said Gerber Lopez, 18.

“I hate [the changes]. It’s just so much harder to get to things,” said Julian Jauregui, 19. “It’s too complicated,” he said.

Valeria Ramirez, psychology major said, “Why change something that doesn’t need fixing?”

Many users agreed and tried to find a way out of the updates, even changing their account’s language to make it go back to normal, but it was only a temporary fix, as the changes proved permanent for every language over the course of a few days.

“People were saying to change the language to English UK, that it would make it normal, but I think we might as well get used to it,” said 18-year-old Ryan Steiber.

Some students embraced the changes and are already used to them.

“I don’t even remember what the last one looked like,” said political science major Lawrence Olson.

“I like how it is now,” said Judith Quinonez, 20.

Criminal Justice major Brandon Hernandez proposed that the people who run Facebook should ask their users how they feel about the changes before they make them.

“Simplicity is key,” said Hernandez. “You should be keeping the people happy.”

Students agreed that if they were in charge of Facebook, there would be many things they would change about the site.

“I don’t like how you get notified of pokes,” said psychology major Carolyn Gonzalez. “That’s what I use the most, then I get a million notifications thinking they’re comments or something, but they’re just pokes.”

“I would get rid of that timeline thing,” said Gayle Gooden, 19.

“I want one of those dislike buttons,” said criminal justice major Socorro Gomez.

“Say I comment on my cousin’s picture. When her friends comment on it after me, I get a notification,” said Savannah Alonso, 19. “I’m not even friends with those people. That’s annoying.”

Some students wished features of Myspace, like profile customization and music, would be incorporated into Facebook changes.

“I would like to decorate my own page. it’s too white and boring,” said Aaron Acosta, 17.

However, students who spent less time on the site said they didn’t really notice too much.

“Everything changes,” said April Forker, 18.

“I don’t really care,” said computer science major David Franco. “They’re small changes.”

“I was a little put off,” music major Lauren Schultz said when she first saw them, but has other issues with the site besides unwanted updates.

“I hate how people spend so much time on Facebook, and not in the real world,” said Schultz. “I just want a place where I can talk to my friends.”