Judging people has always been an automatic thing that we, as humans, tend to do. Whether we like it or not, as soon as we walk into a room full of people we start to categorize them based on the only thing we know — their looks. Even in the three seconds it takes to move from the doorway into a room, we’ve already compiled a long winding list of do’s and don’ts, of which the most presiding thought is “that boy with the honey blonde hair and sweatpants is oh-so-cute, maybe I should sit by him.”

​Every day this happens to us, and every day all this information stays folded up and tucked away in our minds from prying eyes. But what if all this information wasn’t private? What if, with a push of a button, all of the things you’ve ever thought about someone, good or bad, was made into a massive, pulsing, public, living thing on the internet?

Well, it’s already happening.

Hot or Not, a trending app offered for both Android and Apple smartphones was released by the company Or Not Limited in 2013. Hot or Not is pretty self explanatory: it allows users to create a public profile consisting of 12 images where people can either rate you “hot” by clicking a heart icon, or “not” by clicking an icon in the shape of an X. Your hotness score is on a scale from zero to 10  and the more you rate people, the more you can get seen, thus increasing your score.

​But is this app really as hot as we think it is? While some reviews across the app store are raving reports, others have not been so enthusiastic. Tongue-in-cheek accounts of how Hot or Not feeds egos, crushes girls’ self esteem, devalues their bodies and only gives high ratings to those who post revealing pictures are rampant across the world wide web. Here at Central, this controversial app is receiving mixed reactions. Some kids are even shouting “stay away!”

​“I’m one of those people who was bullied a lot in elementary school about the way I looked, so to have an app that rates people on their appearance is, in my opinion, not even logical,” sophomore Lauren Harris said. “Being rated puts down [girls’] self esteem. They go off of what other people say, other people’s judgments, and if they are given low ratings, they could really harm themselves. This app is just ridiculous.”

​Although many are frustrated with Hot or Not, is it the correct move to blame the company that created the app?

​“Generally, in social networking, you can’t get offended, and you can’t blame the app-producing company for any social problems that come out of its use because you were the one who put your information out on the internet,” freshman Akshay Pollokuno said. “People always have the option to say no, and you should say no, because right now its not really worth it to participate in that kind of behavior. [The choices you make] definitely have an impact on your life.”

​The world is changing around us. Every second we get more advanced, more connected, and with these connections comes a terrible danger: a lack of knowledge of the correct way to utilize them. Technology is an “unknown known,” or, in plain english, something that exists but we have no clue of the extent of its capabilities.

​Let’s face it: Hot or Not is fun. It’s a place where people can meet others in their same area, with compatible qualities. On another note, it’s also dangerous. It’s too easy for people to make fake profiles, too easy to create a bad track record, and way too easy to get hurt. So connect, rate and have fun on this app, but be wary of its many “unknowns.”