As I was brainstorming on what I could blog about this week, I happened to check my e-mail and see that I had a Facebook invite to a group called "Hi name is (BLANK) and I am addicted to Facebook" from a friend at a different university. Now if that isn't coincidental I'm not sure what is.
As a class, we are about to embark on the quest to find out if the majority of our Westminster community really could be classified as “addicted to Facebook.” We are all aware of the different groups we have been broken up into to complete this project, so we all know that there is no group centered around looking at past research on the idea of “Facebook addiction.” After receiving this group invite, I decided this would be an important thing to check out as we are beginning the project very soon.
I began by Facebook searching “Facebook Addict” groups. Needless to say, the results were endless (i.e. Facebook Addicts Unite, Facebook Anonymous: Rehab for Facebook Addicts, etc) indicating that many people were well aware of their so called addiction. With this in mind, I began to search previously researched articles dealing with this idea. My findings revolved greatly around college aged individuals and their excessive use of Facebook, which directly relates to our class research. For example, the author of one article entitled “Facebook is not just an addiction – it’s a disease!” raves that Facebook limits interaction between college aged students and creates the idea that people must have “picture perfect” profiles to fit in. (http://www.collegiatetimes.com/news/2/ARTICLE/5655/2005-09-15.html) “We need to face it and realize that life doesn’t happen on a computer screen, that having 202 friends on Facebook doesn’t make you cool.” claims the author who throughout the article describe her own overuse of Facebook. Ironic, don’t you think? Another article written by a college student explains collegiate use of Facebook as “a method of academic homicide.” He says as a recommendation for a cure “Perhaps if there were some type of counseling, [students] could be cured of their addiction to the Facebook.” (http://media.www.smithsophian.com/media/storage/paper587/news/2006/02/24/Opinions/The-Dangers.Of.Facebook.Addiction-1637444.shtml)
Based on these few examples, we are able to see that our objective to explore collegiate addiction to Facebook on our own campus is beneficial and has been recognized elsewhere. According to these articles, Facebook addiction truly does exist in the context of many college campuses and we are likely to find similar results in our own study. Maybe before we begin, though, we should assess our own addiction to Facebook. Though we have already done so to an extent in our discussion board, I recommend you watch this comical video and see if you meet the requirement for the dreaded “Facebook Addiction!” - http://www.allfacebook.com/2008/02/do-you-have-facebook-addiction/
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3 comments:
Wow I loved that video, thanks for sharing Jenn. It was funny, and so true for some people. I don't consider myself to be addicted cause I'm not constantly thinking "Oh my gosh I have to check my Facebook again!" And I rarely change my profile picture or update my status. But I do know people who meet all of this criteria for being considered "addicted to Facebook." I think that a lot of people should go cold turkey like we did that week when we had our Facebook fast. I know it taught me that I can definitely do without it. The only reason it was kind of hard was because I knew I couldn't log in which made me want to do it even more. The articles you found on addiction were very interesting and can be very helpful for our project. It is very ironic that you received that invitation to join that group right as we are starting this project!
I agree that the video is funny and true for many people. I have never thought of myself as an Facebook addict and many of my friends would agree because of my lack of participation on Facebook. During our fast it was definitely not a problem for me to go without Facebook, but it was difficult for me to give up texting. However, I have friends who are addicted to Facebook and it draws them away from their academic work. I am really interested to see the results we gather from our Facebook research. I think we are definitely going to find many students who have become dependent on it.
That's a funny video. But, like Nora and Jordan said, it's very true for some people. I have never heard of the "apps" that the video talked about, so I hope that is a good sign.
I also think that the facebook project is going to be really neat when we discover who is addicted to facebook. Good job of getting some great articles already! =)
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