IS FACEBOOK YOUR “DRUG OF CHOICE”?

…The Facebook Logo

Is Facebook really addictive or……….?

I guess it was just a matter of time, but yes, I am going to write some of my personal thoughts about Facebook.

First, yes, I am “kinda” on Facebook, but my wife is not. She looks at it as an invasion of her privacy and she is a rabid phone user, not e-mail, texting, IM or social media.  When I go on Facebook, I never comment or give “Likes” and I only open it a couple of times a week.  I do so, just to see who the notifications are from and perhaps what they are about. 

So, why is it that I am writing about a subject of which I don’t really have a much to do with?

Well, instead of social media, I am a rabid book and news reader.  If you follow my blog, you also know I spend a lot of time Googling and researching different political issues.  I read historical biographies, the local newspaper, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and sometimes even the Wall Street Journal.   With this background, I don’t think I will ever get the Facebook virus addiction.

Yes, I call anything in social media a virus addiction if it makes people lose contact with their face-to-face friends or if it makes it hard for them to turn off Facebook.  In those cases, it is either a virus, or even more likely, a true social addiction.

As a case-in-point, in an article I read recently, a woman had written; “I might disparage millennials for their Internet addictions, but it had become hard for me to turn off Facebook. I lost touch with some friends, but that was easy to ignore because I had more than a thousand other “friends” to think about. And I was really thinking about them. I knew about their vacations, their illnesses, their dogs and cats. “  She also stated, “I realized that I was reading less, now that I’m so plugged into social media. In fact, I skipped a bunch of book-club meetings because I didn’t have the time or energy to read. At least this is what I told myself. The truth is that I was on my laptop, clicking so often from e-book to Facebook that I couldn’t stay with the thread-of-the-story.”

Yes, that truly is "addictive behavior".

The only way this woman was able to stop her addiction was when her teenage son finally introduced her to a software app called, ironically, SelfControl. This software limits your access to designated web sites for whatever period of time you designate.  So, she actually started using the latest technology to help her addiction to social technology.

On her first day of using SelfControl, she locked herself out of Facebook for three hours. But she admitted that she felt totally scared and asked herself repeatedly, ”What have I done? What if there was something I really wanted to say in those 180 minutes?” Even now she admits just how pathetic she must have sounded.  But in truth, she was just acting like most addicts after you take away their drugs.

What’s really crazy is that this individual is not just an American mother and housewife that happened to get caught up with Facebook on her Mac at the kitchen table.  This is a professional journalist that writes columns for major news organizations.  This definitely proves that anyone with a computer and an internet link is a potential target for becoming addicted to social media.

Even after she started using the SelfControl app, she found it was very hard to break away from Facebook.  She admits that even today, it’s still a “one-day-at-a-time” problem.

 

…A classic Facebook addict at home

Here is her latest comment about where she stands today, “Lately I have allowed myself to get back on Facebook more, and I even post sometimes. I hope to be able to employ a “portion-control” approach rather than go cold turkey. I fill the pockets of empty space with my writing, seeing friends and — oh, yeah! — reading. I got through September’s book-selection and just started October’s. Neither is very good, but I try to finish them, even though we talk about the books for only about 20 minutes of our two-hour meetings. We are really there to connect and catch up.”

She’s back to being one-on-one with real, live friends and acquaintances.

Don’t get me wrong.  There is definitely a place in this world for Facebook and the other social media programs.  I have read that social media has been excellent for the elderly or disabled to still have on-going personal communications with friends and family.  But when it starts taking over an average person’s waking hours, filling all of their time and taking them away from those things that really count, it’s time to move on

Hopefully, this article will help anyone that is on their way to becoming a Facebook addict.  But then again, if they are already too far gone, they will probably never get the opportunity to read articles like this one.

Copyright G.Ater  2014