Is Facebook Consuming You? A Healthcheck for Facebook Addiction Disorder

Facebook - who doesn't know about the largest online community site? It is a growing community in the internet with minimum age requirement of 13, although users can always fake their age and so you will not be surprised to see Facebook members under 13 years of age. Did you know that overuse of Facebook is associated to a certain disorder called FAD-that is, Facebook Addiction Disorder. So, parents should be aware of this especially that their children are spending too much time in the internet. What's with Facebook, by the way, that keeps users from using it for many hours each day?

Here are some reasons why;

• The interactive community. Chat and game features of the social site are one big factors why users are getting hooked on it. Games are more on community building rather than on stand-alone feature.
• Compare to other social network sites, Facebook has the easiest interface to follow. In short, it is user-friendly that even a gradeschool student can understand.
• You can create a group page or fan page which makes the experience more exciting.

And here are the sign if you have FAD;

Photo courtesy of companionsoftware.com

• The number of hours of sleep is lessened and Facebook time becomes higher.
• It's not easy to determine how much is "too much" for an individual but for an average person an hour with Facebook is already considered too much. A 30-minute surfing is enough according to Joanna Lipari, a psychologist at the University of California.
• Since Facebook is a large community you will get to meet your "old girlfriends/boyfriends" and become obsessed with them once again.
• Sneaking on Facebook even during working hours is also quite alarming. It makes you less productive.
• Not logging in your account even just for a day can make you stressed and uneasy.

So, those are the signs. If you have one of the above mentioned symptoms you will make a good candidate for having the FAD. Although there is no proof yet that Facebook addiction is a medical disorder, one has still to consider the negative effects of too much Facebook-ing.