A message to the students who put pictures of themselves “partying” while posing with beers on Facebook: use your brain.

We understand that teenagers feel the need to rebel and all of that, but  posting these kind of pictures on the Internet won’t get you anywhere. Kids need to remember that if something goes onto the World Wide Web, it will remain there for all of eternity. You put something online, it never goes away; there’s a record online that employers, the government, and anyone can really see, to judge you on.

On the one hand, people feel like the administration is getting involved in their business that has nothing to do with school; that really isn’t a valid argument. As we’ve learned in the monotonous Student Rights and Responsibilities presentation that is revisited each year, it doesn’t really matter if you’re at school or at home. The school will get involved, and you will get in trouble.

It’s safe to say that at every high school, someone is going to be drinking. The thing about this that puzzles us the most is the need for attention. We all know the pictures and we’ve all seen the pictures: a boy or a girl with one hand in the air, while flaunting their drink in the other. This concept is foreign to no teenager, which makes it that much more of a mystery: why does everyone feel the need to show the world what they’re doing, especially when they’re breaking the law?

Maybe it’s the thrill. The rush of excitement you receive when someone comments or likes a picture and commends you on being “crazy” can make you feel cool. Plus, most kids like to brag about what they get away with. It’s part of being young and reckless.

To some, kids partying on Saturday nights is a staple of high school, just as much as homework or SATs. And as we’ve all seen in recent events, it’s not the best way to succeed in school. If people want to drink, obviously they can find a way to do so. But putting evidence online for the whole world to see is a pretty obvious way to get yourself in trouble. Facebook is a huge part of teenagers’ lives, but proof of drinking is something that should probably be left out of your albums.