NEW ADDICTION COMES TO LIFE!!

So, there you are, on a Saturday morning with a cup of coffee caressing your senses and relaxing your brain, sitting at your desk and ‘Facebooking’. You have 34 notifications, 5 group invitations, 1 suggested page and 3 friend requests, one of which is of an unknown person. You are not new in Facebook. You've been using it for two years now. And what you do this Saturday morning is what you've been doing nearly all mornings since Facebook joined your life. And this goes on and on, relentlessly. Whether you have realized it or not, Facebook is a real part of your life, is a real partner whom you have to see for good morning and kiss for good night. What changes over time is your degree of addiction; as it happens with all love-hate relationships.

You don’t think you are a Facebook addict. Social networking is just a part of your generation that feels more comfortable with text messaging, chatting and online communication. Facebook can be used for personal reasons or for promoting your business and gain greater exposure. This is the good part. However, most of the people use it primarily for personal reasons because Facebook has so many applications, games and tools that anyone can join for free and lead a ‘social’ life perhaps at a cost.

Everything that happens in your life, you feel like sharing with your contacts on your status line. All of a sudden, completely strangers ‘comments’ are important to you and your own perception is long forgotten.

Your defense to all the above is that social networking websites cannot replace your real friendships. You don’t really communicate with people online as you communicate with real people whom you can see, hear and touch. However, if you think back during these two years, there have been times that real people were not available in your times of need, while online people were there and supported you; and you did communicate with them.

So, it's not everything wrong about Facebook. In many cases, you can catch up with old friends, find valuable information, promote your work and your business, support really important causes and meet people who can be real friends in the process. What is wrong with Facebook is the ritualistic involvement that turns into addiction and belligerently deprives you from your real life by triggering you to log on several times a day.