Eventually, I caved, three years ago in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep in my cold dorm room. Out of boredom, I created a Facebook account, and just like that, I was hooked. And I couldn’t stop until now.
“See, you’re missing out,” a friend of mine said to me just a couple weeks after school ended as we got coffee. She just posted pictures from a party she had gone to, and I don’t have access to them because my Facebook account is currently deactivated. It came to a point where I checked my Facebook before I started my homework, and wouldn’t start my homework until I responded to every wall post, every inbox message, changed my profile picture twice, and updated my status to “Priya is trying to do her homework.”
I didn’t want to become one of those people who updated their status every minute of every hour. But without knowing it, I was becoming one of them. Soon I was always on Facebook: at home, at school, on my phone, on the bus. It was sickening. Along the way, I lost my identity. I lost my face.
As a part of my research for this article, I picked up a book called Facebook: The Missing Manual, by E. A. Vander Veer. As I flipped through the book, most of the information provided in the book was things I already knew, such as joining a network, sending messages, and Facebook mobile. This is another version of “Facebook for Dummies,” and I thought, who would read this? And then I saw a chapter on “Hiring and Getting Hired,” and for a moment I forgot that I was a part of this generation.
This generation is growing up online; we’re depending on technology too much. How about a good old phone call? No, we communicate through texting, poking, and tweeting. Of course I wouldn’t read this book, but maybe my dad would. Or someone who didn’t entirely grow up online.
Facebook was born in 2004, making at least $15 billion. For the first year or two, it was only open to college students, and now it is open to every single human being on this planet: children, teens, adults, teachers, co-workers and you and I. All for free.
OK, I’ll admit, for the three years that I’ve been a Facebook user, I’ve gotten in touch with people that I thought I’d never see again. But whatever happened to face-to-face interaction?
Golbon Eghtedari, 25, agrees that Facebook has kept her locked indoors. “I try to get out of there [Facebook] as soon as possible because it’s so easy to get trapped in,” says Eghtedari. “I can’t do my own work [because] you’re up at five in the morning doing God knows what! It used to be MySpace but now it’s Facebook.”
Although deactivating her account sounds drastic, she has decided to go on a “Facebook diet,” where she’s training herself to only be on Facebook 15 minutes a night. Eghtedari also has tendinitis and joint and nerve problems in her hands that occur from using the computer. Her body gets tense, and the time she uses on Facebook consumes all her body energy, leaving little or no energy for work or homework. She’s recognizing that it’s becoming a problem, and that her computer time should be used wisely.
Liam Hemming, a 22-year-old journalism student, deactivated his Facebook account for nearly a month before reactivating it.
“Since I reactivated it, I’ve found that I have more willpower and now only check it once or twice a week,” says Hemming. “I signed back in because my band [Fly Tsetse Fly] is going to make a Facebook [page/profile] and I want to convert all my friends into friends of the band so we can promote it.”
Hemming says Facebook got in the way of doing homework also.
Glenn Dillon, a licensed clinical social worker in private practice at Second Story Counseling in Chicago, has dealt with clients who have been impacted by technology. Dillon says that obsessions with anything could easily take someone away from responsibilities and can possibly turn into an addiction.
“People can hide behind Facebook to do things that they probably wouldn’t do in real life, whether it’s to communicate or stalk or break up with someone,” says Dillon. “A good rule is if you wouldn’t do it face-to-face, then you probably shouldn’t do it on Facebook.”
Patience and concentration and a meditative mindset are harder qualities to achieve when you’re constantly on these social networking sites, says Dillon.
Vanessa Ford, a Chicago-based independent licensed clinical social worker, specializes in psychotherapy and addiction. Ford says it’s best to set limits, and if you find yourself not sticking to these limits, it can be a deeper compulsive problem.
“I would probably look at different criteria rather then quantifying it,” says Ford. “I would look at it if a person is compulsively logging on more often than they would like. And that it has a compulsive feeling to it, especially if they said to themselves, ‘Oh, I’m just gonna go on for five minutes,’ and then they chronically find that they are on there for a half an hour or more. That would look addictive or compulsive to me.” (For assistance in evaluating any type of addiction, please visit Ford’s website: vanessaeford.com.)
Katie Robinson, 21, a student, says she knows how to control her time. Facebook is a part of her daily cycle, but she only allows herself to be on it 10 to 20 minutes a day, sometimes even less.
“It can be an easy distraction like if I’m trying to write a paper,” says Robinson. “The internet as whole is an easy distraction. But that’s if you let it.”
The day after I deactivated my Facebook account, I ran into an old classmate who said she’d find me on Facebook. As I tried to explain my situation, it looked as if she didn’t understand.
“No, get a Facebook. Now is the time; it's summer!” she said. But when did summer become an excuse to log on to Facebook?
“I want to be outside under the sun,” says Eghtedari from Facebook frustration. “I want to get back to reading and hang out with friends and go places. I want to be in the world, and not in the cyber world. I want to meet my friends for coffee, and not send [them] a cup of coffee through some coffee sending application on Facebook.”
And so do I. Deactivating my Facebook account, I believe, is helping me get off line and interact with the outside world. I am finally getting my face back.
*Is Facebook a blessing or a curse? Share your thoughts now on the Glossy Blog!
*Photography by GMO Photographer, Billy Montgomery.
