Mass communication has arrived. We can do it with anyone, anywhere, anytime!
We’ve officially plugged ourselves into the largest communications device ever known to mankind.
Rather than reaching out to connect with other planets or species (think moon and mars landings), and in the apparent absence of aliens—according to the White House— we’ve begun connecting with each other.
Cue soundtrack: Louis Armstrong… “What a Wonderful World.”
Or is it?
Facebook has been spreading across the continents faster than a highly contagious Asian bird flu, luring millions of members into the surreal world of social networking. It’s big. Bigger than Justin Bieber or Ashton Kutcher’s Twitter following.
More than 10% of the world’s population now has an account and Americans recently logged 101,000 years of Facebook time in a single month. On average, users worldwide spend about 10 hours a month updating, poking, chatting, posting, and tagging!
Still, the question remains: How good, bad, healthy, connecting, isolating, or addictive is Facebook? Yes, Facebook has a dark side that leads us into temptation, but it also has the potential to provide us with an incredibly efficient and instant way to connect with each other for free! (Unlike cell phones.) And—this is a big and—it has the potential to break down the social boundaries, uniting people across racial, religious, gender, and cultural divides in a way that has never before been possible.
You could say that Facebook is doing a far more effective job than religion at teaching us to “love thy neighbor,” connecting us with random strangers and new “friends” from distant lands—people with different ideals, beliefs, jobs, traditions, even languages—all in the name of connectivity.
And, unlike when we first made contact with other races (armed with bows and arrows), Facebook is the domain for friendly fire. The most damage you can do is to “poke” someone (or post a really ugly picture of them!).
But, some people just can’t get enough, can’t have a conversation, can hardly manage a meal, or watch a movie, let alone a visit to the bathroom without “tagging,” “posting,” “poking,” “liking,” “commenting,” or “chatting” on Facebook.
Some people seem to exhibit rather unusual and alarming behaviors in relation to the world’s biggest social network. Hmmmmm......perhaps that was the plan all along? To destroy the human race by ending real world social interaction and fuelling a narcissistic addiction to checking news feeds and notifications every few minutes!
Just for fun we decided to explore the humorous side to our Facebook adoration (or is that addiction?) by noting and illustrating the many weird and wonderful obsessive behaviors that people exhibit as a result of Facebook.
Some might seem familiar.
Maybe they’ll even remind you of someone. Do you hear yourself wondering, “I’ll post this on Facebook and see what my ‘friends’ think?”
We thought so. Then maybe, just maybe, you’re in need of The Facebook Diet! Have a peek through these pages, you’ll laugh at some, sneer at others, and occasionally wonder, “Am I addicted to Facebook, too?”
We suggest unplugging once in a while—it’s a wonderful world out there, you know. Just lean down, grab the plug and pull. It’s easy. ~ Enjoy!
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