My Facebook Addiction

What a shame! I've escaped "Farmville" computer game addiction for good (by God's help actually) but now I got stuck with Facebook instead! Life in the modern world is dangerous indeed.

Since I got a smart phone, Facebook has been vert easy to access all day and I began to notice my addiction to it. Now I understand why some people on the bus, on the train, or on the street just keep staring at the square screen in their hand and almost never look up to see the world or notice other people.

I think these are the main reasons that people get addict to facebook:
- To feel that someone notice us, accept us and to feel that we are not alone.
- To tell others about who we are
- To vent out our pain and anger
- To feel useful by giving advice to others.
- To forget the problems of our life (at least for a while)

Actually there are worse cases, too. Some people use facebook to compare their lives with other people's life. Some use it to attack others verbally, or to sneak-peak the life of others and talk behind their back, etc. But these are not my reasons of using facebook, so I'm not going to discuss about it.  

In my case, I began to get worried about the condition when I noticed myself using facebook so many times a day. Before I start working on my computer, while I was working on my computer, and after I was working on my computer. Then later, I used it while I was on the street, on the taxi, on the boat. Then sometimes I even let myself be late for something important just because I want to check facebook first. I check it in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening, at night. And I started to think...oh God..I'm crazy!

I began to notice also that while I was using it, I totally forgot about the world. Facebook is like something that can absorb me into it. I would be so emotionally and mentally involved that for a while I did not even notice how long the time has passed. Even worse, sometimes I logged into Facebook so automatically that I was not aware while I was doing it. It seems that my hand is possessed. Keep it on the computer board for a while, it will click  facebook. Keep it on the mobile screen for a while, it will press the icon facebook. It is truly something like insanity, actually.

Then I noticed, that after I use it, I've been thinking too much it too. My head would be full of the stories from facebook, about the thing that I just post, about this person's point of view and that person's life story and all the trivial things that should not be messing around in my head.

So, I now I better admit to the truth. Posting on facebook and see if people will clik 'like' or how they would comment, in one aspect, is just a way of seeking attention. Sharing opinions and thoughts is not a bad thing, but when you start getting agitated about reaction from others, now that's a bad thing.

Clicking "like" on people's post is like a time-consuming worthless activity. Sometimes I do it just to say "hey, I'm here, I'm still your friend, I approve you so you better approve me." Sometimes I do it just to escape into another world and forget my world for a while. It is something that I can just keep on doing, although pointlessly, until so much time has passed. And I thought, isn't it great? I've got so much information today about the world and other people! But then when I came to think about it...how many times those information made me feel down or worried...how many times they are lies....how many times they are full of temptations for the worldly pleasure...how many times they caused me to sin. And even harmless information can mess around in my head for so long that it does not have any space to hear what God has to say.

But I will say...still...that facebook has its benefits too if you use it and don't get addicted to it. People share good and useful information, people helped one another, comfort and console one another through facebook. Relatives and families living faraway from one another can keep in touch through facebook and that means it is a tool that serves Love as well. Sometimes I've got inspiration from some good facebook pages that helped me a lot during the day. Sometimes I was lifted by a friend's consoling words through facebook and sometimes I helped them in their bad day through facebook as well.

Nevertheless, I am serious about my addiction condition, because it is severe. Right now I tried to reduce the time spent on it even more than before. At first I thought that two times a day (five minutes each) would help, but after a while it did not work. Now I cut it down to two times a week, and if it still does not work, I will totally withdraw myself from it, shutting down my account if I have to.

Time in life is so precious. I can't waste them any more because I've been wasting so much, I don't know how much I have left.