In an age dominated by Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, it’s refreshing to see students connecting outside of the common social media, while uniting under a common interest. This happens when a group of friends form a fantasy sports league, an online competition to assemble the best sports team, statistically speaking. If you were to listen close enough, you’d hear some students in the halls talking about potential trades and upcoming matchups.

In the lunchroom, a table of sophomores, who claimed to have some interest in fantasy sports, mainly football and hockey, were all in league with their friends, some in the same league with each other. After talking about how their season was going so far in excruciating detail and vigor, they talked a little bit about why they participated and what it entailed.

Joe Violi, a sophomore, explains his experience with fantasy sports: “We kind of get together, it’s kind of fun to hang out. It’s hard to get together with all the school going on and stuff with homework and high school and stuff.” Violi complained about drafting Doug Martin in the first round (who went on to be a complete bust).

Neale Misquitta, another sophomore, also had his share of fantasy successes and failures this year. He is very active in the fantasy sports world. “Currently, I am in two football league and two hockey leagues,” he said. It’s not uncommon at all for people to engage in multiple league for the same sport, as many of the other students at this table said.

He said he was in these leagues with his friends from around the school, saying that it is a friendly competition and it’s more fun the compete with people he knows. It is possible to compete in a public league with total strangers, but these students preferred to compete with each other for bragging rights.

It is a reasonably time-consuming task to manage a team. Neale said, “It takes a lot of time. More like half an hour [to set my lineup], actually.” That doesn’t include activities, like trading negotiations and monitoring the free agent market, both of which are major aspects of fantasy sports.

To create a league, one student usually takes charge and creates a league, to which he sends out email invitations for his friends. They accept, draft their players, and just like that, there’s a fantasy league. It can range through all sports, from football to golf.

Although it may not be the most productive use of someone’s time, it’s a good way to connect with friends and gain some serious bragging rights over them. And for that, anything’s worth it, right?