18 to 24 Insight: The Sticky Business of Facebook Addiction

Last week a fellow Facebookobsessed friend sent me a New York Times article titled amp8220How Sticky Is Membership on Facebook Just Try Breaking Freeamp8221 I assumed the article was about the psychology of Facebook addiction something even a recent iPhone commercial is capitalizing on I was disappointed however to realize the article was about deactivated accounts still showing up in search results One user who spent two months trying to have his account deleted quoted an Eagles song to describe Facebook amp8220You can check out any time you like but you can never leaveamp8221 And though the use of this quote was intended to refer to the storing of information on Facebook I felt it was applicable to a more intangible dependence on the social networking siteI joined Facebook nearly four years ago when I was told it was like Friendster only better I would log on once maybe twice a week My Facebook usage remained steady until the News Feed feature was added And though a friend and I made a pact to cancel our accounts if Facebook didnamp8217t remove the News Feed after a fierce backlash from users we never did follow through The News Feed privacy settings that Facebook immediately set in place seemed a fair compromise Little did I know that the exact feature which almost made me cancel my account would eventually double then triple then quadruple you get the picture the time I would spend on FacebookThe everchanging update all of my Facebook friends had me coming back for more Joining groups named amp8220I Look at Facebook Late at Night Instead of Studyingamp8221 and amp8220I Have a Crush On Someone But All I Do is Look at Their Facebook Profile Late at Nightamp8221 made me feel like I wasnamp8217t alone kind of like joining an Alcoholics Anonymous group that meets at a bar Eventually I was visiting Facebook daily Daily became twice a day once before work and once after Shortly after my usage increased to twice a day I needed to be on Facebook for a jobrelated project At this point I knew Iamp8217d just have to accept my addictionThe allfacebook blog recently posted a list of 10 reasons youamp8217ve had too much Facebook My personal favorite is the one for which Iamp8217m most guilty amp8220You always have an instance of Facebook runningamp8230 Bonus points if you have more than 5 instances because you are playing a game and browsing through your exgirlfriendamp8217s profile at the same timeamp8221 With the added features of applications and friend filters Iamp8217ve been known to play Oregon Trail checking which of my friends are online and trying to find pictures of a boyfriendamp8217s ex all at the same time in multiple windows Itamp8217s a great exercise in multitasking Now that I can watch YouTube videos browse and post photos shop for music and communicate with friends in a centralized location it shouldnamp8217t be a shock that Iamp8217m spending more time on Facebook and less time on YouTube Flickr iTunes and email So you could say that Facebook is just a different means to the same end realizing itamp8217s 2 in the morning and you still havenamp8217t done your homework

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18 to 24 Insight: The Sticky Business of Facebook Addiction

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Nina Spezzaferro

Empowering Women in Media: Insights from Industry Leaders (Video) - By E.B. Moss

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