by Michelle Hozey

Created on: January 22, 2010

With over 350 million users, Facebook is the largest social network in cyberspace. Facebook typically has three kinds of users: The Addicts, The Sporadics and The In-Betweens. Facebook hooks users with tantalizing applications, such as Farmville, Family Tree and those wonderful status cloud applications that analyze all your status updates and present them to you in one picture or graph for convenient and entertaining viewing. With so many features and so much to discover, it’s easy to join the scores of The Addicts. You could run a Facebook application to tell you how addicted you are, or you could watch out for the following signs.

1. You participate in more online interaction than you do in face-to-face interaction.

Many Facebook users have more friends online than they do in real life. On Facebook, “friends” can be acquaintances, friends of friends or total strangers. The Addicts don’t usually balk at commenting on casual acquaintances’ photos and status updates whereas they probably wouldn’t walk up to that same person on the street and tell them “OMG, you have the best hair everrr!”

2. The majority of your wall posts are from applications.

Are you one of those annoying Facebook users who clogs up everyone’s news feed with things like “John Smith needs five more people to work on his farm!” or “Jane Brown is 97% insane!”? If you are, then there’s a small chance that you might be addicted.

3. You constantly update your status from your phone.

Do you feel the need to share every little detail of your life with your online friends? Do your statuses read something like this: “OMG. I just ate at Quiznos and it was the bessssttt!” posted by Jane at 5:14 p.m., “Hahahaha. I totally just shot a piece of lettuce out my nose!” posted by Jane at 5:17 p.m., “I HATE my boyfriend!” posted by Jane at 5:20 p.m., “I have the best boyfriend everrr!” posted by Jane at 5:32 p.m.? Again, if so, you may be addicted.

4. Facebook begins your day and Facebook ends your day.

What is the first thing you do every morning when you wake up? What is the last thing you do every night before you go to bed? If the answer to those questions was “Check my Facebook”, you are most likely addicted.

5. Your time spent on Facebook interferes with real life.

Has your husband started having conversations with himself because you are too caught up in commenting on pictures and spying on your friends to answer him? Are his questions to you followed by sighs because he knows you aren’t paying attention? Is the laundry piling up and have the dishes gone unwashed for days because you’re afraid you might miss something if you step away from your computer? Sorry to say it, but you’re definitely addicted.

If you find yourself guilty of these five things, you may need to consider making a change in your Facebooking habits. Facebook is great, but too much Facebook just leads to personal trouble. 

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