New Ailment Diagnosed: Facebook Addiction Disorder (FAD)..Are you suffering?

Habits are first cobwebs, then cables. And, Facebook plays off this trend.

Suffering from FAD?

Your Inbox has been a repeated recipient of registration emails, for close to half a decade now, from new social media websites emerging everyday on the Web. In fact, the World Wide Web is now mushroomed with these websites, ready to engulf you under the veil of consumption of information in the social media space.

It's high time you must confront your Facebook addiction!

Most of us fell victim to these temptations initially, and instantly prodded our keyboards to have our smiling faces engraved on the user pages of these websites. A competition began. A competition that blinded us—to add more and more friends. The bigger the social circle, the more is the social prestige! It became the style mantra. We didn’t realize when we got entangled in the mesh of social media. Now, can you beat this one? One out of eight couples that got married in 2010 in U.S. met through social media.

Facebook surfaced, and within a span of two years almost ate into Orkut and MySpace like a moth. It has become our ‘Best Friend’, accompanying us anytime, anywhere. Most of you would agree with me on this if I say that Facebook is indeed much better than most of ‘our passive’ acquaintances in our Facebook circle added as ‘Friends’. 😉 😉

But do you realize that in the recent past, you’ve started loving Facebook more than it’s needed. It’s imperative to screen your personality right at this juncture to find out if you’ve fallen an easy prey to this parasite.

• Do you check your Facebook account even before you go for your daily ablutions?
• Is it now your habit to prod your mobile phone when not in front of your PC or laptop to log on to Facebook and check the news feed?
• Is logging on there multiple times a day now a routine?
• Are you now in the practice of sharing the minutest details of your personal or professional life on Facebook?
• Do you talk to or express your love for your siblings through Facebook wall, comments, etc. even when you are at an arm’s length from each other?
• Do you feel the repeated urge of knowing about your Facebook status, comments, updates etc. when you’re offline?
• Do you have 6, 589 friends in your friend list? Do you feel you’re going into depression if you forget to update ‘good night’ status on your Facebook wall?

FAD: A cost for loving digital media too passionately

Dear friends, these are the symptoms of your uncontrolled activities on Facebook, and with a heavy heart I declare this as ‘Facebook Mania’. Better to call it ‘Facebook Addiction Disorder’ (FAD), a mainstream medical disorder as declared by psychologists.

Let me pull your attention to some mind-tickling statistics of Facebook addiction.

As per one of the probes conducted, it has been predicted that over 350 million Facebook users worldwide have admitted to be suffering from this addiction. What alarming numbers of this malady!

Some findings suggest that over 48% Facebook users check or update their Facebook status before they hit the bed. Over 21% of women aged 18-34 years check Facebook in the middle of the night. More than 50% users are fine in being friends with absolute strangers on Facebook.Over 19% of users below 25 years of age feel restless if they’re not able to check their accounts for more than a couple of hours. More than 61% users compulsorily check their accounts once a day.  Over 23% iPhone users largely get their morning news from Facebook.

Startled? Me, too!

An addiction that’s on the rise, globally. And, it calls for an immediate fix.

FAD: Is it 'Real' or simply a fad?

You can rise from the corpse of FAD only when you’re willing to accept that you’re a victim of this ailment, and that you need to save yourself from the pangs of it. Once your heart and head give you a ‘Green Signal’ unanimously, make a headway advance in your de-addiction spree. The sooner, the better!

I’d recommend that you spend some more time with your kith and kins; stay away from your PC whenever you feel an urge to access your Facebook account; give up the peer pressure of Facebook-ing. And, you’ll find in some time that you have nibbled the mesh of Facebook addiction yourself, and succeeded in setting yourself free.

Free again, to enjoy the beauties of nature and life.