Hi. My name is Eva. And I am addicted to Facebook.
There, I said it. Of all the drugs I have tried in my life, Facebook is the only one that has me truly hooked. I check it when I wake up; I check it while I'm waiting at the bus stop; I check it before I go to sleep. I confess to spending hours browsing through profiles - some friends, some strangers - for no other reason than I'm nosy. Every photo that I, or someone else, takes is a potential new display picture; every funny comment, a potential status update...That awesome choc chip muffin I just ate was just SO DAMN GOOD that I had to share it with the world!! Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with this picture?!! For every time that I think about logging on, there is a semi-conscious part of me thinking that I have a huge problem. This isn't normal. This thing is taking over my life. Not only is it consuming my every thought (turning the most banal activities into supposedly high-interest 460-characters-or-less newsflashes), it is affecting my sleeping patterns, affecting my study motivation and making me a lazy friend. Yes, the vortex that is Facebook sucks me in so that I fend off sleep until the wee hours of the morning, and for what? So I can make a few funny comments on someone's page or chat to a person I barely know about bullshit because I'm bored and have nothing else better to do? Oh wait Eva, you do have something better to do - it's called SLEEP! And perhaps if you try doing that before 1am, you might not actually feel like an extra from Zombieland when you wake up for work the next day! As for the negative effects of Facebook on my study, well you can just ask one of the 1,028,768 members of the "I was doing my homework, then I ended up on Facebook" page.
The other fucked up result of being addicted to Facebook is, as i mentioned, being a lazy friend. It's similar to what the SMS has done to personal communication - allowed us to skimp on face-to-face contact and stopped us from making a phone call simply because it might be the quicker or easier option. Or maybe it's just because we are chicken shit and don't have the balls to open our mouths to say what we want to say knowing we will have to deal with an immediate or possibly confronting reaction. Facebook allows us to keep in touch with "friends" without really having to make any effort. It's especially effortless for someone like me who can touch-type at the speed of light...I can write HIHOWAREYOUHOPETOSEEYOUSOON in approximately 3 seconds, seemingly caring, but really I can't be fucked or apparently don't have the time to offer you a real conversation. That is just sad. And i don't like myself, or anyone else, for it. That is why Facebook has created such a mental disturbance for me. Facebook has turned me into a selfish, unmotivated sloth with under-eye bags the size of Trinidad & Tobago. So, in light of this fact, I have decided to conduct a personal experiment. I hypothesise that by deactivating Facebook for two weeks, I will, in that short time:
- feel healthier and gain more energy from sleeping more and not spending hours sitting on the couch
- get more study done because I won't be distracted by checking notifications and reading statuses proclaiming what people had for dinner or their inspirational quote for the day which was most likely stolen off some "Inspirational Quote of the Day" website
- become a better friend to those I do consider real friends, and pay less attention to people who do not matter
- and, most significantly, regain control of MY MIND, by eliminating unneccessary thoughts about Facebook, it's members, and anything else that may be vaguely related.
This is a serious experiment!! And I know, it's only for two weeks, but like I said, it's an experiment and all I'm interested in is seeing what happens in the two weeks after I click "DEACTIVATE". If anyone would like to join me in this endeavour, I say FUCK YEAH! I'm not trying to boycott Facebook, just taking control of what, for me, is an annoying addiction. When I begin this trial, you'll all know about it. Until then, my soon-to-be deactivated friends...
Eva xx
