At the moment the world is in the digital age with internet covering almost everybody’s life. The internet affects us all differently. Some have grabbed it as a super opportunity of a lifetime to reach greater heights. However, on the flip side some have allowed internet to take over their lives to such an extent that they just cannot have enough of it. This malady has now reached alarming proportions and is now being called a disorder – Facebook addiction disorder.
Facebook Addiction Disorder
What are the symptoms of Facebook addiction disorder?
Addiction: You feel the need to use Facebook again and again which means the point of satisfaction is running further away, compelling you to spend increasingly more time on Facebook. Signing in thrice is alarming and if it exceeds five times, then the situation is nearing helplessness and bordering on addiction.
Virtual World: Spending such long hours on the Facebook leads to alienation from the real world and real people. Distress sets in and social functions get affected. The Facebook wall becomes the world and what is written there and commented upon becomes of prime importance.
Social Life and other Activities: Friends and relatives who once met you and spent joyous moments with you are now confined to Facebook. The human element vanishes. The limit is when people caress or kiss their girlfriends’ images on Facebook. This would be interpreted as almost total withdrawal from reality. Even when meeting new friends addicted people inevitably say “see you on face book” or “include me on Facebook”. One to one meetings and personal interaction are not given as much as a thought.
Other signs of Facebook addiction disorder:
Sleep deprivation due spending the night on Facebook and this affecting the next day activities
Spending more than one hour average time on any site
Trying to reestablish contact on Facebook with past friends
Work getting affected
Stress and feeling of anxiety taking over when missing a day on Facebook
Statistics:
Facebook has 400 million users with almost 50% of them logging on everyday.
The average age group which uses Facebook is 35 years and older.
On an average each user has 130 friends on Facebook.
Worldwide statistics reveal a mind boggling six billion minutes spent on Facebook, almost twice the time spent on Google.
Status updates exceed sixty million daily.
Each month more than three billion photos are uploaded to the site.
Every month more than fourteen million videos are uploaded.
The contents (news stories, blog posts, web links, photos, notes etc.) shared each week are more than five billion.
Each month events in the excess of 3.5 million are created.
Active user groups in excess of 45 million currently exist on this site.
Users of Facebook outside the United States are more than 70%.
Each month Facebook users in excess of 70% utilize Platform applications.
Facebook is connected to more than 15000 websites, applications and devices.
Active users accessing Facebook via their mobiles is more than 100 million.
Those accessing Facebook through mobile devices are 50% more active than non-mobile Facebook users.
Facebook has 1.5 million active pages and the number is constantly increasing.
A Facebook user tries to make 8 friends per month.
An average Facebook user spends more than 55 minutes per day on Facebook.
An average Facebook user writes 25 comments each month.
Facts:
According to the latest Forbes list Mark Zuckerberg is the youngest billionaire.
A 65 million dollar settlement was made by Mark Zuckerberg to settle a legal issue regarding Facebook.
Psychologists have introduced a new kind of disorder, known as Facebook addiction disorder (FAD), as a mainstream medical disorder.
I have been an active user of Facebook for the past two years. I spend around two hours on it almost everyday. Is it too much? Should I cut down on the time spent on Facebook each day?
I am glad I read this article. I have just realized that I do have some problematic signs of overuse. How should I go about rectifying the problem?
I am loner by nature. Even before Facebook I had very little personal interactions with friends. In fact I had very few friends. Now, Facebook has given me this avenue to make new friends without personal contact.