Facebook, Facebook and more Facebook!

“If it is your last day on Earth, what would you do?”Rosy asked. “Well, I would first update my Facebook status as ‘about to die’”, Susan replied. Bad joke, but true. Such, is the addiction people have today towards social networking sites like the Facebook.

There are hundred and one such Susans all over the world who have an addiction to Facebook. According to the dictionary, ‘Addiction’ means ‘great interest in a particular thing to which a lot of time is devoted’. And that is what Facebook is to a lot of women in the world.

It might sound weird but women are more prone to addiction of Facebook than men are. It might sound offending to women, but it is proved that women, especially working ladies, spend hours on networking sites. It is the best way of fulfilling their social needs with minimal effort to catch up with friends and family.

Curious cats (pun not intended) that women are, they need information and gossip about their fellow beings, which Facebook caters to. They get to know ‘who is who’ and also ‘who is with who’, as much as ‘who is working where’. Of course, not all ladies fall under this category, some are more family oriented. They want to see their family, their cousins, their cousins’ kids grow up, their achievements, anything to keep them connected to their extended family, though virtually.

Facebook has also become a forum to cater to our constant journey down the ‘Ego’ lane. Good comments, compliments for pictures, for announcements and achievements boost our ego so much that, unknowingly, we crave for more. And more.

When I call it addiction, I mean that it becomes so much a part of our daily routine that we can’t do without it.  We wake up with Facebook and sleep after bidding ‘goodnight’ to Facebook, sometimes literally, in the form of a goodnight or a good morning status update! Psychologists say that this addiction is the result of loneliness (not solitude), and an urge to be accepted by one and all.

Being a social animal is not bad, but being the voyeuristic animal is bad. Keeping in touch with family and friends at one portal is not bad; desperately waiting to be accepted by all of them is bad. Social networking is not bad, addiction to it is.