NESSA Childers recently announced that she believes the EU should bring in laws to protect people from the “dangers of addiction to popular social networking sites”.
Here goes ... Hi, my name’s Clare and I’m a Facebook addict. I have dabbled in social networking for five years now. At times I’ve hit rock bottom and spent more time than I care to remember cyber stalking.
You know the type of activity ... that friend-of-a-friend’s-cousin’snext-door-neighbour-you-met-once; suddenly you know their favourite food, who they hang out with and where they’re going this weekend.
You begin to recognise people on the street from their profile pictures, and a good night out means a new profile picture.
Yep, these are the symptoms, and I’ve got the disease. There is no known cure, and I fear by the time it’s discovered it may be too late for me.
My social networking addiction began with Bebo. It got me through many a tough day in college when I couldn’t face into the mountain of assignments and chose instead to see what so and so was doing last weekend.
Before I knew it, I’d wasted an hour and, sure, then it was time for a break anyway - I’d been working hard.
I just want to stress that I’m not a complete raving loon - I’ve toned down the stalking element of my addiction (privacy settings are a burden and a blessing!) and I now try to keep my ‘poking’ to a bare minimum.
I, like many others, have become wary of the social networking craze. I have all the privacy settings turned on (always a stalker, never a stalkee), and I’ve never been a fan of adding people I don’t know ... stranger danger.
The day I deleted my Bebo account was the day I told myself I didn’t have an addiction, I could let go at any time.
Of course, like most addicts or recovering addicts, I merely replaced one substance abuse with another, so it was out with Bebo in with Facebook.
Admitting that is the first step to recovery, though, right? No, that’s a lie, I have no intention of changing my social networking ways, and therefore there will be no recovery.
But I don’t feel the need to gather my family now for an intervention; I don’t think I’m an out-and-out addict: I don’t add people I don’t know. I don’t join every single group/page going (although I do laugh at some of the ones my friends join ... and they join a lot!). I haven’t started cancelling plans to stay in with my computer. I don’t use Farmville - oh Farmville, I hate you.
And I haven’t succumbed to the internet slang. ROFL, LOL, TBH are not in my vocabulary. I can tell you what they mean - I’m hip with the kids - but I refuse to use them. If you say something amusing, chances are I won’t actually ‘Roll On The Floor Laughing’, so why would I lie?
According to Childers: “In real life, people have bad breath and smelly feet and we argue about who’s going to change the baby’s nappy. But no such banalities exist in the virtual world.”
Good. I don’t want bad breath and smelly feet on my Facebook. I like that it’s a world of smiling photos and instant access to my friends.
Facebook wouldn’t be so successful if it was boring. It’s like that really organised friend, who lets you know what everybody is up to and reminds you of birthdays. (I’ve missed recent friends’ birthdays but I completely blame Facebook for not reminding me.)
I’m not alone in my addiction though, and I take great comfort in that. We Carlovians are quite big-headed when it comes to social networking it would seem - and, yes, there is a page called I’m from Ireland, but more importantly I’m from Carlow. And, of course, there was the great pub crawl of 2009, which I didn’t actually go on, but seemed to be quite successful considering it has 852 Facebook fans.
Oh, Facebook, where would we be without you? I won’t succumb to Twitter though, and Ashton Kutcher, you can’t make me!