Finding a Balance

Are you a social media enthusiast or just a Facebook addict?

I have a job at a frozen yogurt shop here in Worcester, MA called Yoway. I have been working there for over a year now and as you can probably guess, it gets VERY slow in the fall and winter months. So, what do I do with the time in between customers? Well, I browse Facebook of course!

It is my go-to activity to fill time, or probably more like waste time. As I sit here at my computer now with 8 tabs open on my browser (4 of which are from Facebook browsing and the rest for information for this blog) trying to talk to my Facebook friends while writing this post (sorry Professor Frechette!), I am wondering how much of my time is spent on Facebook or on websites related to Facebook. Why do I sign on in the first place when I know that I have school work that I need to get done? Why do I allow myself to go even further and sign onto chat? Maybe I have an addiction...

This is an issue that plagues most of my peers. And it must plague millions if not 1 billion people on a daily basis. How is it affecting our lives?.

...well I just stopped to browse Facebook in the middle of writing and now lost my train of thought.

That interruption is definitely affecting my completion of this blog post. But to what extent is it harmful? An article in the collegian writes that Facebook does not necessarily cause bad grades but students should be able to account for the extra time they will spend on Facebook when they plan to do homework. 

But what causes this Facebook addiction?

The Facebook profile is the perfect way to inform the world about what you are doing and actually encourages users to constantly talk about him or herself without be labelled as narcissistic. Facebook gives us permission to not feel bad about our narcissistic ways!

People also feel the need to know what it going on in their world, or someone else's world for that matter. Being a "Facebook stalker" is a very popular hobby these days as it allows you to look at other people's photos or information without them even knowing. How exciting!

So in our current world where social media is taking over our culture and impacting most parts of our lives, we must figure out a way to create balance. I guess this is something I'm going to need to work on...