Facebook, the Addiction..

As a thirty-something wife and mother, I had no intentions of joining any "social networking" sites for any reason. After hearing about MySpace, and the drama it was causing a few friends of mine, I decided to steer clear. But, soon the bug hit me. I first joined MySpace as a writer, using my pen name. It was a great way to meet other writers and poets, and keep my real life separate. Then I found Facebook.

Facebook was founded in 2004, and like MySpace, users could connect and interact with other people. But there was something different about Facebook. And as I recently found out, it could be very addictive. Facebook gave people the ability to find long lost friends from as far back as elementary school. It also gave people the opportunity to connect with high school and college sweethearts. Within my network alone, there have been at least four impromptu class reunions including high school classes from 1988 to 1994. There is also an official reunion being planned for the fourth of July 2009, which will include many classes, all thanks to Facebook. But how would I know about all of this, if I were not on Facebook, daily, or should I say, hourly.

As a homeschooler and a writer, I am online all the time. However, I have noticed a huge spike in my time spent on Facebook. But it is not just my time spent there. I have noticed people who are at work are spending a lot of time on Facebook. And if for some reason it is blocked from their employer's computers, they have it downloaded on their mobile phones. What is most interesting about the Facebook users that I know is that we all admit to being addicted to it. Fictitious Facebook therapy groups may soon turn into the real deal.

Far too many of us Facebook addicts find ourselves updating our status on an hourly basis, and some every fifteen minutes. Others are playing the games that can be added to our profiles, and yet others are looking for more friends and or enemies to add to their list of "friends". Thanks to Facebook, our emails and text messages (and possibly class reunions as we know them) might become obsolete. But if it means that I can reconnect with a best friend that I had lost touch with, then sign me up for the next Facebook Addicts Session. I am thrilled to find out that my friends and even some long lost family members are doing well. I alone have connected with two of my closest friends from elementary school and high school, and I would have never known how to find them, without Facebook. Hello, my name is Orlandrea, and I am addicted to Facebook.