Facebook, which started as a social networking site where you can communicate with your friends and family and share your views has now turned into the most popular platform as a social media site. Basically, everyone is on Facebook! The statistics show that there are over 500 million active users on Facebook and these users spend more than 700 billion minutes per month on the site.
With so many users, so many shares and so much of active time, what would you call Facebook? An addiction or an Epidemic?
1. Is Facebook leading to addiction?
There are some studies that show that social networking sites tend to have some hidden dangers such as addiction. It is true that Facebook is a place that helps to find new friends and allows you to form reconnection with old friends. It is a cool, new place to hang out, where people post funny things and pictures. But have you noticed how when someone posts something they wait for likes and exciting comments? And even though in real life they might not be talking to half of the people in their list, they still get likes and comments from them, making the virtual world more beautiful than the regular world. Probably that’s the reason why people are hooking addictively to this social media website.
2. But what happens when hooking to a website turns into addiction?
With the growing popularity Facebook is completely changed from a social networking site to an “Addiction”. The dream world has certainly created problems for many users as they find it very difficult to do anything without looking at their Facebook page. It’s like their lives are linked to the site. It works like a drug in four basic steps:
- Using it
- Abusing it
- Getting Dependent on it
- Addicted to it
3. The difference between use and abuse!
When you are a normal Facebook user you check your account several times a week, which seems perfectly normal. You do it in a very normal way with self-control and no craving for social media. But when you start spending hours after hours on Facebook and check your page like many times, you are actually abusing Facebook. Dependency on Facebook starts when you think about Facebook all time when you are away from it or use Facebook Terminology in daily life and checking your account like hundred times a day. The daily updates turned to frequent and unnecessary updates with a thought that there is no life without Facebook.
4. Can you be addicted to Facebook?
Yes, people get addicted to many things like gambling, smoking, alcohol, sex, and drugs, but can a person get that much addicted to Facebook? The answer is yes, and there are some studies which show that Facebook addiction is worse than tobacco or alcohol.
Facebook is a nice way to stay in touch, a perfect source of knowledge and a place full of entertainment. But when people lose self-control and start living in a fantasyland it becomes an addiction. The common signs for Facebook addiction are:
- Updating status many times in a day
- Leaving work and family spending time online
- Lack of sleep as to stay up nights doing Facebook
- The first thing in the morning is to check Facebook
The Facebook addiction is growing day by day like an epidemic, where millions of users shun themselves from the real world and start living in the virtual world of Facebook.
