by Rachel Solorio

Created on: November 03, 2010   Last Updated: November 04, 2010

Caught In a Virtual Web

The newest worldwide addiction affecting people today is not something you smoke or drink. It comes in the form of a website and can be obtained by anyone. All you need is a device with an internet connection.

According to Brian Solis, a Digital Analyst, if Facebook were a country, it would rank third in population, trailing behind China and India. Facebook helps people stay connected through its website. Users can, among many other things, post pictures and status updates for their friends to comment on. Facebook.com indicates the average user being between the ages 18 and 25. The social network site has rapidly evolved from nearly 1 million users in its first year (2004) to over 500 million users today. People indulge on over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook. Is Facebook becoming a cyber drug?

“I’m constantly on it, at least 20 times a day, if not more,” a Facebook user Jane Smith, 33 (not her real name) says. “When I wake up it’s the first thing I do, and before I go to bed it’s the last thing I do.”

An impulse control disorder is comparable to an addiction. Dictionary.com defines an impulse control disorder as, “Any of various types of mental disorders, such as substance abuse and pathological gambling, characterized by tendency to gratify an immediate desire or impulse regardless of the consequences to one’s self or to others.” An addiction is defined to be, “the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or psychically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma.”

“I’ve put [Facebook] before housework, eating and going places with my family,” says Smith. She says she’s been on Facebook for six hours straight. “My cell phone is mobile, so anywhere I go I get on Facebook.”

Facebook.com statistics’ show, there are more than 150 million current users who utilize Facebook from their mobile device, and people using Facebook on their mobile devices are twice as engaged on Facebook than non-mobile users.

“Social validation” is what people “crave” say Lee Kooler, a Modesto Junior College Professor of Psychology. “You desire validation from social contacts so much you might get distracted from you real life.” Although Facebook addiction is not recognized as a medical condition, Kooler says, social

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