Revolution In The Time Of Facebook Addiction – Part 3

They spoke in conspirational tones, with the sound of the water rushing past the stones. What do you really think it is, this Facebook addiction? Anna suggested that it was something that the adults had invented to control children, but that when they used it they began to miss their old days of freedom too much, and started to drink as a result. She was smarter than the boys, and so they said no, it wasn't true what she said. It did not make sense, because they were grownups and powerful and how could they wish to be children again. Nathan offered his alternative. He said it was because grownups were losing money that the government wanted to arrest Facebook addicts. They were being lazy and sitting in front of the screens instead of selling at the market.

Just as Nathan said market, they heard rustling in the weeds and all turned, transfixed with fear of the consequences of speaking of things that they should not. An older boy emerged, dirty, ragged and smelling as though he had been in the filthy water nearby. His legs were soaked and cut, with blood caked into granite-like streaks. The children knew immediately that he must be a Facebook addict. They had heard that this is what the Facebook addiction can do. They all got up and started to run, screaming. The older boy quickly turned back from whence he came, and was lost into the reeds.

"We saw a Facebook addict, we did, we did!" said Anthony. His mother looked at him sternly.

"Don't say things like that, ok? You will get us all into trouble. Facebook addiction is not something we talk about in this house, do you understand?"

"But mum!" the boy tried to argue. His mother was having none of it.

"All the other boys will have been told by their parents by now, that they are not to talk about this anymore. Anna's mother told me she has spoken to her about this. Now it is the end of the story. You cannot go to the stream; I do not want you leaving this street. Do you understand?"

Revolution In The Time Of Facebook Addiction – Part 2

"Madam, have you seen people with this in their eyes?" he said, handing across an image with the Facebook homepage.

"No, we haven't seen them. But we want to understand, what is going on? What is this Facebook addiction?" she responded.

The man fidgeted. His partner continued to observe the area in his dark shades. He wrote something down. It was impossible to see what he had written. It seemed very brief and very serious.

"Madam we cannot tell you about Facebook addiction. We cannot even say the term. You know too much, madam. But we have other things to do right now."

And with that, he turned and gestured to his accomplice. They returned to their car and drove off.

There were many days of holidays that April. All the focus and classes of school were a distant memory. There were friends and cousins to play with. Trips to undertake. Facebook addiction was the last thing on anyone's mind. Until one day, they had gone to the stream near the house. There were four of them, that time. The other two had stayed behind. They had told them they were too young, and got their mothers to make sure they didn't leave the yard.

The water in the stream was green, sterile, but flowed just enough to avoid the mosquitoes. There was rubbish in there, plastic wrappings of corn meal, a tyre, accumulated masses of floating junk. The reeds captured most of it, and there were big stones that someone had thrown in so that the stream could be crossed. It was difficult to cross. They had never tried, as their mothers had told them it was dangerous. They stared in awe of the power over life and death, of the water before them. Nathan was the first to bring up the issue of Facebook addiction.

Revolution In The Time Of Facebook Addiction

He grew up during the beginning of Facebook addiction, when the Internet was had become just a little more than a distant dream in the eye of a scientist in a lab coat far, far away. The streets were his home, or so it seemed. He was always there, on the kerb, by the lamp. Selling sweets to other children who were his age. And during the hot season (well I say it was the hot season but in truth all seasons there were extremely hot) he would sell icicles, blocks of sugared ice, to people of all ages who came out of their yards. They would sit on their porches in the afternoons, especially the grandmothers and grandfathers, and especially at the weekends, sleeping, every now and then swatting a fly away, swinging in the arm chair. They all seemed older than they were, the people who lived on that street.

One day a car arrived with a mark that he immediately noticed. He had seen it before. It was not a police car, but it was of an official-looking colour. The colour of importance, the colour of government. Inside the car were two men with stern expressions. One was stout, with a dark complexion. The other was much thinner. Taller. They across the whole street, moving from house to house. They held pieces of paper and pens. They walked in a serious way, to accompany the seriousness of their expressions and the official grey of their car. He overheard his older cousin speaking of this new Facebook thing, and how the government was looking for information about Facebook addiction. These were curious times.

He asked what Facebook addiction was. He had not yet seen a computer. His cousin, older and wiser, or so he liked to think, said that it was a bit like alcohol. Except it made things appear on a screen like TV, and then people would stay all day sitting in front of the screen and drinking. So is it just beer, asked the little boy. No don't be silly says the cousin, it's not beer, it's more serious than that. It's like the time there was a robber and the police were chased him, door to door, in the neighbourhood. That's how serious it is. The police are here and they are coming back unless they find these Facebook addicts. They steal what everyone lacks, they take what's not theirs. The cousin said he'd heard they produced a thing called content. And it made others sit in front of their screen and it was very bad for them. They would also drink at the same time.

What Facebook Addiction Did To A Town

Hank walked into the town as the wind blew the leaves onto the paved tarmac, and then off into the autumn grey. The streets were deserted. You could not hear or see anything but the swing of a porch door, the frenzied chewing of a bone by the brown dog on the kerb. He'd heard it was bad, but Hank had no idea of what he would encounter when he first walked into Rokinsaw, America's first quarantined Facebook addiction zone.

The helicopter swooped overhead and nearly blew his cowboy hat away. One of the occupants, wearing a flak jacket labelled SWOT, leaned heavily as if he were about to fall off. It didn't help that he took a few moments to adjust his spectacles, before adjusting the loudspeaker and saying "This is a restricted zone. You are not to walk around here without permission!".

Suddenly all mayhem broke loose. The dog that had been chewing at the bone started barking fiercely, and the porch doors swung open. All the people who had just updated their Facebook statuses marched towards Hank, arms stretched outwards. Hank turned as if to run, but only succeeded in tripping over the dog, which was now biting his leg. The helicopter had moved off, as if our hero was already a lost cause. As more and more people surrounded Hank, he tried to get up but found himself surrounded. There was nowhere to go. He screamed, and the people suddenly put their hands into their pockets. The one nearest him was the first to speak. It was unclear what he was saying at first, because it was muffled and yet loud at the same time. "Here" he said. "I've just updated my Facebook page. Do you like it?"

Facebook Addiction And The Cafe

The man close to the door sat looking at the wall, and then at his Facebook page for several minutes. Then he would look up again, as if to gain his bearings. The waitress approached. “Can I get anything more for you today, sir?” He looked perturbed, then quickly regained his composure. “I’m fine, thank you. Maybe a little later on.”

Meanwhile, across the wooden darkness of the cafe interior, across the swamp of lamp-free nothingness that gave the impression of creating an ocean of life experiences and difference, sat a couple, intimate and animated. “So babe, my dear, how are we going to celebrate our anniversary?”

“It’d be so sweet if you could write me a note like the one you wrote on my Facebook wall when we first met.”

“Well of course babe, but what do you want us to do afterwards?”

“There are so many ideas, let me just check my Facebook suggestions.”

And so the couple continued to discuss their plans, and as they did so, across on the other side of the cafe, at least four or five people, sat with their computers. The glow of their computer screens lit up their faces in an ethereal glow. The colours varied from a blue reflection to flashes of yellow and red and green. At least three or four people with the static blue colour occasionally got up and shouted “yes! I got a like for my status update!”

Be Careful - A Cautionary Tale About Facebook Addiction - Part 2

Now one of the girls was checking something on her monitor, turning to the other girl, and laughing even louder. At this, he realised that he had forgotten to switch off his Facebook financial integration feature, and it was set to fuse with any store systems he encountered. In other words, the shop assistants knew he didn’t have much to spend at all, and that he’d bought his carefully maintained clothes more than 2 years ago, without replacement. He turned red as he considered the cost of not keeping his Facebook settings in check. The assistant was now coming towards him, and he dreaded what she would say. Would she ask him to leave? It was ironic how Facebook extended even here, in this store that advertised that it offered better service than Facebook itself. These outlandish claims were propagated by designer types who thought that their celebrity credentials could outwit the Facebook design engine, which could now track the preferences of 5 billion people and produce manufactured goods in realtime, depending on what was popular at the time.

She approached him, striding confidently and with a face that reminded him of Facebook poker:

“Sir, I notice from Facebook that your credit is really poor and I’m going to have to ask you to leave. This is a luxury zone sir, and you have to have a net Facebook credit rating of three hundred and twenty seven to be allowed in here sir. There is a shop just outside the zone than can cater to your needs, or you can use the Facebook economy service. I also see that you’re a registered Facebook addict, and there’s a dosage centre right there.”

She had said it with a straight stare, through his Facebook visor, and all his friends could see him. He could hear their laughter through the Facebook audio visor, and their comments were flashing in his real time visor.

“You frickin loser!” read one comment.

“Another one bites the dust” said another.

He turned, without saying a word, and walked out into the Facebook-filled night.

Be Careful - A Cautionary Tale About Facebook Addiction

As he stepped into the mall, a sudden gust of wind brushed into the unbuttoned top half of his shirt. He felt a bit cold, but he was determined that this was the look for the day, and he was not going to change it now. The heels of his shoes – wooden and expensive, reverberated across the mall as he walked. It was an oasis of Beverley Hills in the middle of London, a kind of LA transposition of celebrity and fashion. There was open space and red-brick pavement, ultra contemporary shopping space, with the name of a celebrity here and there, splattered above a shop with ostentatious clothing. Facebook adverts were everywhere, since he had opted in for the virtual reality stream. All he could see was being broadcast on Facebook, and the walls of the shops advertised which of his friends ‘liked’ the shops he was seeing, in real time. There was no longer a definition of Facebook addiction, as Facebook had become an integral part of life.

He walked into the grandiosely titled Larger than Facebook store, which was a vast expanse to consumer non-electronics. You see, Facebook was integrated everywhere now. You could not buy anything without a Facebook chip, a Facebook screen, or chew food without a Facebook scan-friendly signature, so that your brain could relay the taste in real time to the network, where your friends would be able to set the ‘live like...’ mode and experience everything you tasted, saw or felt, in real time. So this store was an aberration.

The shop assistant saw him coming in and whispered to the girl standing beside her. They both laughed, but did so looking down at the counter. He didn’t care. He knew they had a reputation here for being full of themselves. But he’d show them how much he had to spend and they would see who the head honcho really was.

Facebook addiction: A Survivor’s Tale Part 9

She looked at me in a business-like manner, which didn't make sense because a) we were in a library and b) her eyes looked at me softly, despite the way she was trying to look all tough. I had read about this somewhere, before my Facebook addiction days.

So she says "Excuse me, do you know where I can find the English literature section?" That's when I knew it was obviously a ruse, as there's a big sign saying 'ENGLISH LITERATURE' at the entrance to the library. I played it cool. I may have been a Facebook addict, but I wasn't a fool.

I say "Sure, I know where the English literature section is, let me show you where it is'. But of course, at that moment my memory had just happened to fail, and I told her we would have to walk around a little bit whilst we looked for it. She let slip a momentary smile, I got a glimpse of perfect teeth. This was important. But beyond that, she had a radiant skin, which I knew was soft and moisturised, just as her nails were so perfectly manicured. She had to be smart too, to hang out in the library - in this university's library, anyhow - and want to check out literature. I hadn't been on Facebook for several hours now, and I could not have known that it was the beginning of the end of my Facebook addiction.

I took her right round the library, asking simple questions about how she what she was studying, how she was finding the course. She had come from the north of England to study law, and was curious about a book that a friend had recommended. She loved the university and the town, was finding it great. She asked me where I'd come from, and how I was finding my course. I of course replied with my default answers and immediately came back with a question of my own. I was the Facebook addict, and this was a chance to get live status updates from a beautiful woman. If there was a like button, I'd have jammed it by now, that's how much I was enjoying these moments.

Facebook addiction: A Survivor’s Tale Part 8

Freedom. That’s what college represented. The opportunity to get away from nagging teachers, parents, set my own timetable, follow my own priorities. I was to be my own man, to control my own destiny. Until my independence fell victim to Facebook addiction.

Facebook addiction seems a striking victimhood for a young man, with high hopes of achieving everything he wanted, and the determination to go with it. But it’s much easier to become addicted than you might think. Consider this. What does Facebook show you the moment you log in? Is it not a report of almost everything in the virtual lives of those you know and care about, or are just curious about?

When you view the content that Facebook has, it looks designed to just keep you there forever. The wall, the photos, the comments, the notes, the shrine to self expression and, some would say, narcissism that is the profile page. Ah yes, for someone who was short of avenues and full of things to share, Facebook was the ultimate place to let it all go. But one of the problems with Facebook addiction is that, the more time you spend on the site, the less there is that’s new. The less fascination you have when you log onto the site. The less interesting other peoples’ virtual lives become.

My Facebook addiction was already waning when I met the reason for it to end. I had taken some time off that day, and by that I mean I had taken time off Facebook. I went to the library to study. I never really go to the library, it bores me and I always fall asleep. But on this particular day, the library just seemed a good place to get away from it all. I sat down in one of the quiet alcoves with my books, a pen and a notepad. As I scribbled away at some nonsense I knew I would never read again, I heard a chair move as someone sat opposite me. I didn’t think to look up, so I continued. After a few more seconds, was the shuffling of books and papers. It suddenly occurred to me that I was no longer alone in this alcove.

Facebook addiction: A Survivor’s Tale Part 7

So last time I was in the middle of telling you how I, a reformed Facebook addict, spent my days on campus. I’d told you, I think, of the rush of blood to the head that came from playing Farmville, especially when beating my 12 hour record, despite the tiredness. Oh wait, I hadn’t yet told you that.

The aim of Farmville, for those who don’t know, is basically to oversee the growth of a community of virtual citizens in your own virtual town, of which you are the mayor. You compete against your Facebook friends for points and for sheer size and power. This game has tonnes of features that really cater to the Facebook addict. It’s compelling, it’s viral, and it keeps you logged onto your Facebook account without having to say a word. In other words, it’s social without really being social, which is what makes it so effective.

So I started playing a trial game, with mayorship of my town of Chivandra, which I thought sounded rather mystical and cool at the same time. I was incompetent at first, but as I continued playing, I got better and better, and more addicted. I once went a whole 14 hours without doing anything other than playing Farmville on Facebook, and that was after a whole week of playing for 12 hours a day. I was a Facebook addict and a Farmville addict all rolled in one.

Addiction can be a cruel and powerful thing. I had my exams amidst a bout of Facebook addiction. Needless to say, they didn’t go well. It’s difficult to concentrate, let alone write an essay, when your vocabulary is full of jumbled up acronyms like ‘lolz’, ‘lmao’ and other gems that professors love to read. I was an inhabitant of the virtual world being forced to adapt and write real world student essays, and that just didn’t seem realistic or fair. I remember stepping out of the exam room feeling really angry, angry that I had been subjected to the nonsensical trivialities of learning the history and politics of places I didn’t know or care about, angry that I had to write something to satisfy the mindless automatons that occupied academia. But somewhere I could not bring myself to recognise, I was angry also at the fact that I had let myself down, let go of the self control that I had exhibited in my university entry exams, and found myself with an uncertain student career.

Facebook addiction: A Survivor’s Tale Part 6

College is supposed to be full of drinks and mayhem. And it was. It’s just that I didn’t really take part. It was as though there was a different slipstream with people getting wasted, vomiting. I glided past the footpath next to the pubs where, some time at night, or even during the day in fact, a student would burst out as if rushing to some forgotten appointment, only to let forth a stream of regurgitated lunch or dinner. It wasn’t pleasant, and it seemed like madness compared to what I knew, by now, to be a mild Facebook addiction.

I saw myself as being above the craziness, the hedonism of the mainstream students. My family was back home, rooting for me to succeed. And I was going to get there, if I didn’t get off the beaten track. You see, for me, the Facebook addiction was a way of staying safe. I couldn’t do the crazy stuff that the other kids were doing – it just didn’t seem sane or rational or whatever you want to call it. But when logged onto Facebook, playing Farmville or instant messaging, it just seemed like a fun vibe.

You don’t want to know why I was afraid of the real world. It’s not really relevant. But suffice it to say, there was real pain and hurt out there, and I was safe in here, looking at my screen and finding solace in the digital ink that would gloriously bring news, chat, opinions, banality. The Facebook status update was really the bane of my social existence, the chat feature an enabler, and Farmville, well, let’s just say that my Farmville addiction was a way of passing the time.

With each day, I’d get up and check my Facebook status update. I’d then head to the lectures in the morning, passing through Giovanni’s coffee van on the way. Giovanni was cool, always had a friendly word to say about the weather or whatever. I’d often meet up with people from my class and we’d walk together talking about stuff that had happened around college. I always found stuff to talk about, without mentioning my Facebook addiction, let alone my Farmville addiction. It just wasn’t sufficiently cool to talk about. I knew what a dweeb was, and I wasn’t gonna be one. Uh uh. Facebook addict or not, no-one was going to know about it.

Facebook addiction: A Survivor’s Tale Part 5

I later discover that there had been a few important events at the party after I left earlier in the evening – someone had got drunk and embarrassed themselves by confessing some troublesome secrets to everyone there. It was quite funny for some, but not so for those who were mentioned. In any case, the photos were pasted all over Facebook. I was glad I’d left to get home early.

By now you’re probably wondering if there’s a point to all this, was there some greater meaning found by the Facebook addiction? Well, I cannot spoil the story and ruin your concentration by telling you too quickly, can I? But suffice it to say, there is a surprising twist in this story.

The moment of epiphany came one weekend when there seemed particularly nothing special to do. The weather was awful. I didn’t want to leave the house. My on/off girlfriend was off. It was really rather bleak. But I’d surpassed the 1,000 Facebook friends milestone and was feeling rather pleased with myself, at least in that regard. And let’s face it, with a Facebook addiction, it was like having the guaranteed buzz for months. I found lots of people who like me, were hooked onto Farmville. We’d play for hours and hours. Like this particular weekend, in fact.

I had started on the Friday evening. My time in class was always a chore, what with thinking about the Farmville games I would play later on. My college had some policy to do with distraction and non-essential use of computers around the lecture halls, which meant that there was no Facebook available there.

Facebook addiction: A Survivor’s Tale Part 4

I hadn’t been to a real world party for ages. It seemed to take too long to travel across the city. Sitting in a steel cage with a bunch of strangers who were busy trying very hard not to acknowledge each other was just a bore. Not only that, but sometimes you’d have the tube train driver trying to compensate by being chirpy, as if excitedly announcing that the train ahead was 30 seconds late was somehow going to brighten your day or something. It was ridiculous. But I’d been invited, via Facebook (call it a perk of Facebook addiction), and this time I took the chance to go. I wouldn’t be away from my computer for too long, or so I thought.

The party was in north London, at the kind of place people who did proper jobs lived in. I mean, it was the kind of Georgian mansion block only a banker and related financial cronies could like. I thought it was a dump. And I took my cigarettes in, walking with a swagger that announced the arrival of a man with an enormous chip on his shoulder. There were smartly dressed people already talking to each other about some transaction, some bank going bust, some bonus going on a holiday flat somewhere. Interesting, I thought, and got to drinking. I figured I’d get wasted, get out of there, and back to my computer for my Facebook fix.

As soon as I arrive back home, I log back on to my Facebook account. My neighbour seems to be having a party, I can hear the voices in the background. They’re laughing and talking loudly, with Led Zeppelin playing not too loudly, but loud enough that I can hear it and make out that the song’s “Battle of Evermore”. But all this is subconscious – the only thing my mind is processing right now is the latest status updates, and the screen for Farmville that’s just starting up. Forget parties, Facebook addiction is just the cure for a dull Saturday night, or is it?

Facebook addiction: A Survivor’s Tale Part 3

Facebook opened itself up to 3rd party applications like games. Suddenly I found myself hooked. You might ask yourself at this point, what I was doing for a living, that I managed to play games for so long. Well, that’s the nature of Facebook addiction, my friend. There is no rationale. I was in the office, and we don’t have one of these fancy blocking systems like I hear they have in big companies. Nope. Out here in the mid-west, we don’t spend too much on stuff like that. It’s just the wind in your hair and Facebook friends on your back when you take too long to respond.

Ok so I took it too far. We’d be sending each other messages about really trivial things. Some of the status updates were just ridiculous. What else can you call a ‘broadcast’ about the jam having fallen from a donut and onto your shoe. I mean, if you don’t want jam falling on you then don’t eat a jam donut! But of course, such a negative status update would never do on Facebook. When you’re a Facebook addict, your Facebook friends are your dealer. You don’t want to upset your dealer. So I’d write something like ‘must’ve been tasty, that donut’, all the while choking at the thought of a donut-jam-shoe mixup, especially when I knew that she didn’t wash her shoes very often...

By now you’ve figured that this must be some surreal kind of fiction piece right? Well it could be. But you’ll just have to read on to find out. So this other time, another person sends me a message saying ‘hey, party on tomorrow night, my address is.... hope to see you there!’
Well I hadn’t spoken to this person for the longest time, and when a Facebook tool suggested I add them, I was too busy to bother saying no. Since then, there had been a relentless bombardment of invitations to things I had no interest in. But it was good to feel loved, so I kept them on. They produced the content that I needed to feed my Facebook addiction, and by this point it felt like nothing else mattered.

Facebook addiction: A Survivor’s Tale Part 2

I started using Facebook when I moved home, and missed the family and friends. I thought Facebook was a pretty easy way of keeping in touch, as everyone else was talking about it and already seemed to be on the site. With Facebook’s features, it was so easy to find people. I could think of a name, type it in, and there would suddenly be a familiar looking face – easy! It was beautiful. Trawling memories, finding that people who lived on only in the mind, were still real, somewhere. And they would find me too. Every time I logged on, it seemed that someone had thought of me from way back, and looked for me on the site. Little did I know that these moments of bliss were adding up to a Facebook addiction.

Catching up with someone you haven’t spoken to in a very long time can be the most time-consuming experience. A typical conversation with a new Facebook friend would go something like:
Friend: How have you been? It’s been such a very long time since we last spoke. Have you kept in touch with people from school?
Me: Yeah it’s been a long time! So nice to hear from you. What’s been happening with you?
Friend: Things are going great, I’ve moved to (a certain country) and am working for a (a certain company), still (doing the same thing as always).

And so on. Over time the conversation would evolve, with the basic facts established, we would share quick chats about people we know in common, events in our lives and so on. The most addictive thing about Facebook is just how simple it is to use. You can use Facebook anywhere in the world, which just doesn’t help when you’re trying to get work done. But unfortunately, my tryst with Facebook was just beginning and I was going to discover just how much of an impact it would have in my life.

The Facebook friendships kept pouring in. I knew I should be selective about whom I added to my profile, but I was like, what the heck, maybe it would be an interesting way to meet new people. So I’d accept friendship requests. It was weird. As soon as I accepted these friendship requests, they probably looked at my profile. But they never said anything, these strangers. It was for the best though, because something else was fuelling my Facebook addiction at this point.

College Students Lose Sleep & Grades Due To Distraction By Online Games

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Coming soon after recent studies found evidence of Facebook addiction in college students, a doctoral study by a graduate student in the US has found that students are missing classes and losing sleep on an alarming scale, due to addiction to the distraction of online games.

Sabrina Neu examined the relationship between demographic factors, social anxiety, proneness to distraction, grade point average and Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game playing. She found that 42% of student respondents had reported that the distraction of online gaming was interfering with their studies.

Virtual gaming, where participants take on an identity, has exploded in the past 10 years, particularly among 18 to 30 year olds who play it as a distraction from the real world. Online game subscriber numbers are in the millions and profits for game developers are in the billions of dollars," Neu said.

Neu suggested that unlimited internet access, unstructured time led to students being prone to distraction. She said that players ended up neglecting friends and family for the sake of online games. Applications such as iFreeFace can also be used to limit time spent on games, whilst also combating the effects of Facebook addiction.

Facebook Addiction: Top UK Students Increasingly Distracted

A survey has found that a large proportion of Britain’s top students are struggling to balance the distraction of social networking with their studies, and that some could even be battling Facebook addiction. This comes after a US university recently banned social networking from its campus in the first experiment of its kind.

42% of 200 university students surveyed at Cambridge, Oxford, Reading, LSE, UCL and Imperial reported that using the internet was often getting in the way of their studies. The survey was carried out by iFreeFace.com, which produces distraction-blocking software for students.

A lecturer in the Media and Communications Department at the LSE, Dr Ellen Helsper said “Studies on excessive use and social uses of the internet show that these young people constantly have to weigh the benefits against the disadvantages of being ‘wired’...it is likely that a healthy integration of technologies into everyday life will become more and more important for our social and mental health.”

Meanwhile, Harrisburg University in the US state of Pennsylvania has gone to the extent of banning Facebook from its campus for a trial week in what it calls an experiment on multi-tasking. The idea of the university’s provost, Eric Darr, was to undertake an experiment to find out what distracting impact social media and multitasking were having on college life.

Giovanni Acosta, 21, a student at Harrisburg, found the experiment surprisingly beneficial. "I had to log on to Facebook even though I knew it was blocked, and I did that every 10 minutes or so, again and again," he said. "But now the itch has gone. I've learnt how much I was being distracted."

The impact of social networking on students has led iFreeFace.com to develop a novel solution. The iFreeFace application enables students to set time limits on any computer-based distraction, including websites and games. iFreeFace is designed to help those who might otherwise suffer from Facebook addiction. This leads to improved concentration and focus when performing tasks such as online research and essay writing.

About iFreeFace

iFreeFace is a PC software that helps to overcome Facebook addiction and enables students to set daily time limits on social networking sites and games. iFreeFace is a trading name of Exceltasks Ltd, a British startup.

Survey Methodology

Survey was conducted via online questionnaires. Students at the specific universities were reached via Facebook advertisements. Those who clicked through from the advertisement to the survey were counted as respondents. Each respondent was asked three questions 1) Are you a full-time student? 2) At which university do you study? 3) Do you find that the internet gets in the way of your studies? (Answer options: a) No b) Yes, often c) Yes, occasionally

The proportion of students who find the internet distracting was calculated from the number of full-time students who answered b) or c) to question 3, divided by the total number of impressions of the survey.

Facebook Addiction: A Survivor's Tale

What I'm going to tell you about Facebook addiction

Facebook addiction had a big effect on my life, until I learned how to overcome it. I'm about to tell you how I battled Facebook addiction and managed to cure myself. If you are thinking about how to overcome Facebook addiction right now, then maybe this could help you as well.

Facebook addiction Took Me By Surprise

I joined Facebook quite late, when many people were already on the site. I quickly grew my account to hundreds of people from the past. With people requesting my friendship after seeing me online, I just felt I couldn't say no. And it was fun! I spent so much time catching up with people I hadn't been in contact with for years. It's unclear when this became a Facebook addiction.

When does using Facebook become an addiction?

Addiction is defined as a psychological dependency that continues despite having negative side-effects. I didn't think I had Facebook addiction at the time. I used to spend a few hours of free time easily on the site, using chat, playing games, and catching up with friends. But on the days that I didn't have time to use Facebook because of work, I found myself anxious; waiting to check what was going on. I felt so disconnected from everything. It was like life was happening elsewhere and if I wasn't on Facebook, then I was missing out. I guess it was at that point that you could say I had a Facebook addiction.

Part 2 now available. Check menu on the right.

Ten Ways To Overcome Facebook Addiction

A study by the University of Maryland has found that students cut off from the Internet for just 24 hours had symptoms similar to Facebook addiction. It seems we students cannot function without distraction, but could there be a more productive way?

Some students in the University Maryland experiment said that without the distracting effects of quasi Facebook addiction, text messages and videos, they spent more time on course work.

So here are ten tips to overcome Facebook addiction, get work done in the library and achieve your potential in your exams.

Overcoming Facebook Addiction Tip 1. Leave the phone at home.

Even this isn't enough. Some students in the University of Maryland study broke the media restrictions because they wanted to make sure 'nothing bad had happened' to their family and friends over the 24 hour period. So let your friends and family know that you'll be unavailable because you're in the library - perhaps by recording a voicemail message, or updating your Facebook status accordingly.

Overcoming Facebook Addiction Tip 2. Diversify your information diet. Slowly.

The shock of suddenly being cut off from the Internet and Facebook was too much for many students. “Although I started the day feeling good, I noticed my mood started to change around noon. I started to feel isolated and lonely." By slowly cutting your time spent online, you can make the process less traumatic. A tool like iFreeFace can help with this.

Overcoming Facebook Addiction Tip 3. Fill your ipod with lyric-free music that you don't like so much.

A key issue for many students was dealing with the silence that came from being without their media. “The hardest part of the 24 hours was not listening to music” said one student at Maryland. This could actually drive Facebook addiction - why? Because if you find yourself distracted when there's no music, then you're much more likely to log onto Facebook.

Some students need background music to study, but for others, it reduces productivity despite being addictive. You may find your mind wandering when listening to certain songs.

Try filling your iPod with lyric-free music such as classical. A great source for free classical music is the Isabella Gardner Museum Concert Podcasts. There are over 100 orchestral performances available to download free at http://www.gardnermuseum.org/music/podcast/archives.asp

The key is to find a piece of music that will not distract you but create whatever background 'noise' you need to concentrate.

Overcoming Facebook Addiction Tip 4. Update your Facebook to say you're studying.

This point has already been alluded to earlier, but dealing with Facebook addiction requires constant reinforcement. A student from Maryland commented “I knew that the hardest aspect of ridding myself of media though, would be not checking Facebook or my emails, so I went ahead and deactivated my Facebook account in advance. It’s pathetic to think that I knew I had to delete my Facebook in order to prevent myself from checking it for one day.”

If you find yourself in a similar position, then try reinforcing your resolve by updating your Facebook status to say that you're studying. This aligns your social networking profile with what you're trying to achieve, and makes you more willing to work consistently with your plan to study.

Overcoming Facebook Addiction Tip 5. Arrange to meet up with friends before hand, or study with friends at some point.

Students who went without media for 24 hours complained that they felt lonely and disconnected from the world around them. Setting up regular meeting times with friends, or having regular meeting places where you get together without caring so much about a set schedule, could help with going cold-turkey and overcoming Facebook addiction.

Overcoming Facebook Addiction Tip 6. Plan what you're going to do during the times you usually spend on Facebook or listening to music

Since social media is a part of our daily routines, students have times when they instinctively check the internet or email, or switch on the TV. This is a key part of Facebook addiction. If you're to go cold turkey successfully then you need to manage that time in advance. Find out what clubs and societies, or what other activities you can do during those times, and sign up.

Overcoming Facebook Addiction Tip 7. Leave just enough time to make essential calls, do research, and contact people.

It will take a while without media to reduce dependency on it. Meanwhile, there are family and friends to keep in contact with, and a social life to manage, so how can you do it?

If you've let family and friends know about your studying times as above, then they should be able to leave you to it as not many issues will require your intervention within say, a 12 to 24 hour period.

But to make sure to spend an efficient amount of time contacting people when you get to it, identify the times when you are least likely to be distracted and schedule your Internet, messaging and calling times for then. This could be half an hour before you go to lectures. Just make sure you have to be somewhere at the end of your allocated time.

Overcoming Facebook Addiction Tip 8. Write down your goals and carry them around with you

“I felt like a complete addict on withdrawal mode, once I gave in, I went all out and felt connected to the world again” - a student at the University of Maryland

It can seem almost like a sacrifice to cut out your media distractions even for only 24 hours, like the Maryland students in the study. To sustain your information diet, you need to remind yourself why you're doing it. Write down what you will gain from getting an extra few hours a day. And write down what you have not yet done, but might have done, if you had spent less time using media in the past. Then carry this in your pocket, and review every time you're tempted to use the computer or your mobile.

Overcoming Facebook Addiction Tip 9. Get some help.

No, not a psychiatrist. Just some useful online tools for managing time online. Applications like iFreeFace can be used to set daily time limits on any website, email, and games. iFreeFace is controlled by the user and doesn't send out data. It can also be set to give reminders only.

Overcoming Facebook Addiction Tip 10. Don't give up just because you fail a couple of times.

“I broke my streak by checking into ESPN.com. I couldn’t stand going an entire day without getting my sports fix.” - University of Maryland student

When we're constantly 'wired', it's going to be difficult to give up completely. There may be times when you just give in to distractions. But don't give up! Each day is a blank canvas, which you can start with the best intentions for your student career.

Students Show 'Signs Of Addiction' To Facebook

A recent study has found that students show signs of Facebook addiction and information addiction when cut off from the Internet, mobile telephones, newspapers and other distractions.

When 200 students at the University of Maryland went distraction-free for 24 hours, they were asked to blog about their experiences afterwards. They were not allowed to use the internet, mobile phones or other distracting media, but were allowed access to library books for the duration of the experiment. The findings were quite astounding.

The lack of distracting media had powerful effects. Some students reported symptoms similar to drug addicts in withdrawal. “I noticed physically, that I began to fidget", said one student. A number of students hallucinated that their mobile phones were in their pockets or were turned on, even when they weren’t.

One student stated “When sitting in the library reading my textbook, I actually did hear some vibrations in my head and would think my phone was vibrating next to me”. According to the researchers, the absence of information – the feeling of not being connected to the world – was among the things that caused the most anxiety in students. Could it be that students cannot function without distraction?

The apparent Facebook addiction was not without lofty explanations. "I find it [difficult] to fathom someone not being connected through media, because I know no other way,” one student wrote. “It’s funny,” wrote another, “but I realized we are a social species, and the use of media today helps us to establish a connection with one another.”

It seems that seeking distraction or even Facebook addiction could be an integral part of the student experience. A student admitted "I probably spend at least 1-2 hours on these sites alone BEFORE I even make it to attempting my homework and then continue checking these websites while doing my school work.”

Link to the ICMPA Study

http://withoutmedia.wordpress.com/