James Clarke
Sean Fitzroy
CSI 110
June 10, 2009
Facebook, as far as everyone is concerned is currently the ultimate online personal networking application. I use it, everyone I know uses it, and it is considered odd if you don't. My mother's friends talk about it at dinner parties, and joke how they have contacted their good old, long lost friends. I know many people, including myself who use it for personal use as well as promotions use for either a business, or a band or something else. I don't know how many people will admit this, but every-time I get on Facebook, I cringe with hatred. There is something about impersonal communication that is so useful yet so impersonal that having enough free time to sit in front of a computer, looking up your friend's pictures from their beach trip seems unhealthy. There are multiple interesting issues and all around problems with using this extremely popular service, which can result in a total addiction to the service, or for me, force you to despise it.
If you are to type ,”Facebook disorders,” into google, you can find multiple articles written about FAD, or, Facebook Addiction disorder. Last year, Idris Mootee wrote about Facebook in a blog about internet addiction. Her article, while mostly satirical, had some very interesting comments written at the bottom. A girl who commented on this specific blog, posted about her addiction to Facebook openly. She even wrote about creating a Facebook group about being addicted to Facebook. The purpose of the group she says is to try to focus on other things in their life other than Facebook. This to me seems crazy to me on many levels.
Addiction to the internet is not something that is undocumented. Dr. Dannon, a doctor well known worldwide for his work in gambling and addiction has studied addictions to the internet believes that we need to look at it differently. Many proffesionals look at the issue as a type of obsesive compulsive disorder.
According to Dr. Dannon these addictions are just like anyones addiction, “to coffee, exercise, or talking on their cell phone. As times change, so do our addictions.”
Something crazy to me is that I have found myself excited when someone who I haven't spoken to in a while, comments on a photo or posts something on my Facebook “wall.” It would seem that the excitement comes from the thought of a friend thinking about me. It would also seem that they were by themselves at one point on their computer looking at pictures of me. This creeps me out a little bit and may be where the term “Facebook-creeper” came from. I have encountered this term in multiple situations. One situation was when a girl who I was interested in at the time commented on a picture of mine on Facebook. She said that she hoped I didn't think she was a Facebook-creeper. Well, obviously she seemed like one to me, but what other point does Facebook exist for. Creeping on some band, some fans, some friend, an ex-friend, a future girlfriend, an ex-girlfriend, a cheating girlfriend, these are the ultimate purpose of this application. It would seem to me that an addiction to Facebook is different from any other addiction on the internet. FAD, in my eyes, an addiction to creeping or stalking.
If I must use it there are a few things that I wish could be changed. I feel that there are a few features that I ultimately have to go to another web application to find. I greatly dislike how there is no music streaming on Facebook. They promote band pages and groups but to network and find music and then listen to it, you must leave Facebook and either go to Purevolume.com or venture over to the good old myspace.com. I feel that that is the only reason I still, as well others, use myspace. Myspace.com is full of fake accounts and spam that seems to only want to steal my information. Facebook, I am sure has its fair share of malware but seems to be less malicious. I also wish facebook looked better. Its hard to figure out what is going on on all the different pages and is often way to cluttered. The simpler everything looks, in my opinion, the better.
While it may seem that Facebook is the end-all and best social networking application on the internet, I still feel there is room for competition and growth. There are problems with the usability, along with the addictions to Facebook as well. I predict that while the user experience will get “better,” more and more people will find themselves attached to the site along with others on the internet and our society will find addiction to the web more and more of a problem.
Work Cited
Futurelab Blog. May 31, 2008. “Are you suffering from Facebook addiction disorder?” By Idris Mootee. Accessed June 10, 2008
Blog.futurelab.net/2008/05/are_you_suffering_from_faceboo.html
Psych Central. August 20,2007. “Internet Obsession or Addiction.” By Rick Nauert
Accessed June 10, 2008
http://psychcentral.com/news/2007/08/18/internet-obsession-or-addiction/1152.html
Work on refining your writing. This seems like a first draft. Some of the statements could be made more clearly, like ""as far as everyone is concerned"? Everyone? Is that accurate, or is there a better way to say this?
ReplyDeleteMuch of this is dedicated to how you feel about Facebook, I'd like to see more discussion of the features (your mention of the music was a good start) and proposals to improve the service.
FYI: there are many Facebook fan / band pages that have a music player.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/the-sun-lee-sunbeam/19930226506