This week my goals where to create and finish my Facebook addiction article. These goals were completed and I have created and completed the first draft of my Facebook Addiction Article. I have also gotten feedback on the article from my target audience and will be making changes to the article soon. This puts me on time with my schedule.

My intention for the article was to create an informative and serious article which could give help to those who have friends or family with Facebook addiction. The general thought of my article from my target audience is that I have for filled this criteria.

Below is the 1st draft for the article:

Facebook is something that genuinely scares me. Not in the Freddy Krueger is in the wardrobe about to rip my throat out scared, but scared in the sense of what it is capable of. A study earlier this year said that the population of Facebook spend 10.5 billion minutes a day on the procrastinating king of the internet. This stat alone makes Zuckerburg look like the puppet master of the world and most people would agree with me on that, but in total honesty I can’t see why.

I've never given into hype or recommendations, so when Facebook was first starting to gain popularity I was never really got into it and still haven’t. Mainly because the idea of updating people on what I'm doing was slightly unnerving to me but even now I only use Facebook to check birthdays, talk to the five or six people I actually like using the chat thing and try to piece together what I can remember about last night from a series of drunken photo bombing.

 From this you can probably figure out I’m not convinced on the whole idea of Facebook addiction. It’s strange to me that people can stare for hours at the same meaningless bullshit day after day yet still sprout a cyber stiffy when someone sends them a cow to add to their Farmville. I could go on but it is actually a serious issue that is spreading faster around the internet then a cat doing gangnam style.

So how does it all begin? Some experts say it's the small social "achievements" we get from using Facebook. For example you put up a status and some people like it, you personally gain the self satisfaction that something you said is making someone LOL or ROFL, and with this new found comfort in knowing people like your contribution to the internet, it makes you feel good. Of course we as humans hate not being liked, even the "f**k the haters!" kids that swear they need know one still crave the attention of being liked that we all need. So because of this we update again, and again, and again.

Some other experts say people find a new level of interaction that they would never get in the real world. This is most common in people that are socially awkward and reluctant to interact with the outside world. But online, people can come out of their shell. There's no face to face communication, no pressure of coming up with witty responses, the ability to quickly take back what you said before confrontation starts. Just them and the internet. This cutting out the middle man approach to social interaction soon becomes the only social interaction these people get, consuming their spare time that non-addicts would spend socialising in the real world.

So how can you spot an addict? The signs are very subtle, very little things that combined obviously point to addiction. One of these things are frequent updates. Addicts tend to update several times a day, even as far as 10-15 status updates daily during all times whether it be day or night. Another symptom is changing profile pictures excessively. This comes back to the "likes = good self esteem" reason for doing this erratic swapping of photos, hoping that your new picture can get you more likes then the one from last month. Another one which is a little more obvious is the amount of time spent on Facebook. Addicts spend hours upon hours tirelessly going through status updates, photos and friend requests just to satisfy the social media itch they have.

A person I know very well is one of these people who shows most of these symptoms. He always seems to be online, status updates are frequent as well as photos and sharing of pages. He was once a normal teenager, he went out whenever he could, he did well in school and like most of us, he had Facebook. His addiction didn't take long to kick in and the once social and lively friend we all had known once before, had become a drained shell of his former self. Overworked from falling behind in college and sleeping very little because he was catching up on work. I met up with him recently to talk about his "Over using of Facebook." He didn't like me saying addiction. "I'm not someone who depends on Facebook." He told me, although with the tone in his voice I don't even think he was convinced. "Yeah I use it a little too much, but everyone does right? We all log on when we should be revising, it's just normal."  

It's all well and good me telling you how you can spot someone who's an addict or why they do it and even a personal story on it, but the real important thing is how to stop it. there are 2 paths you can take when trying to kick the addiction. The first method is going cold turkey, completely cutting Facebook out of your life until you feel you're ready to go back online and not spend 4 hours picking where to put your Farmville carrots. Or the method I'd recommend, Slowly weaning yourself away from Facebook. Cutting it out of your life completely sounds all well and good but the dramatic switch in usage from 10 to 0 hours is too much for people to handle. The further they are distanced, the more they lust to see what people are doing and sooner or later they break, then eventually they're hooked once again. However, gradually lowering the usage, minimizing it to bear essential usage is a lot healthier than trying to kill the addiction head on. You can start this by deleting any apps you may have on your phone. The temptation becomes much less powerful when the big blue icon at the bottom of your phone isn't there. Modern computers now can also limit the amount of time spent on certain websites. Parental blocks come in very useful in restricting the amount of time spent on Facebook or even blocking it completely if you feel it necessary. Any notifications should also be turned off whether it be by e-mail or the bright red circle that appears when you have a friend request on your Facebook icon, taking away the temptation of checking what's been happening in the internet world.

So has these steps helped my friend from becoming a healthy user. Sadly no. Of course it's easy saying "I'll stop, I'm done." But the reality is it isn't easy. Just because the addiction isn't a physical thing like cigarettes or drugs it doesn't make it any easier to kick. My friend hasn't moved on. He's still stuck in the endless cycle of saying he'll quit, giving in to temptation and eventually giving in all together saying he'll stop again next week. But, there are people that can give up. With the support of friends and family you can kick this unhealthy obsession once and for all.