Book Face?

I regularly question if I seriously need an intervention.

My mind is on Facebook, when I should be figuring out schedules, light bulb order requests, conference call agendas and whatever else comes with a full-time job. Or even perhaps, doing the dishes, my laundry, or balancing my checkbook. Instead, I spend time running back and forth, refreshing my homepage. Checking for status updates, comments and notifications. Scoping for those special people I've been checking for...hourly. Hawking other people's conversations, responses and updates that I have nothing to do with.


My involvement with being a book face causes me to leave messages for people I haven't heard from in years, but suddenly find myself needing to know what they are doing every hour of every day. I'm realizing that what started off as a way to keep in touch with people, has maybe become a more modern way to...stalk. No more lurking in bushes behind dark corners, rolling through in front of their jobs, choosing to be at the same spot at the same time..."coincidentally". I can put that all behind me now, cause now all I need is a notification. An "I'll be here tonight...", status update sorta deal.


Even right now, as I type this, I've refreshed my Facebook page three times. I can't help it. I entertain the thought that this is all okay because they're my "friends". The fact that I've uploaded a mobile version, makes me think that this is all getting way too out of hand, but damn, they make it so easy.


It doesn't stop there though, when I get home, first thing on is the computer. My homepage...Facebook. It used to be just a list in my Favorites. I knew it was bad when I felt guilty for not paying enough attention to my MySpace. So much so, that I consider the possibility of ending the Space relationship.


I was up until 2AM last night, frantically trying to respond to each status update that little red box in the right hand corner notified me of. Meanwhile, those friends were probably long asleep in the REM state.


I used to be a social butterfly. Always at the parties, always out. Things haven't changed so much, I'm still out, but now, I'm mobile. I'm at the bar...checking. I'm in the bathroom line...refreshing. I'm on the dance floor...updating. Has it gone too far?

So the underlying question of this addiction is, if we didn't have this connection, would we continue to reach out and connect? Yes, we have the phone numbers to call, but we don't. I got a voicemail from a friend last night and his message was, "I guess if I don't join Facebook, we may never speak again." He might be right. Another friend recently commented that they had, "Never seen me this active on Facebook." It wasn't so long ago that I received emails from various friends inviting me to join the site. My response, "WTF is that?" It used to be a college networking site that got blown out of the water by MySpace. Now, my addiction.



We could discuss how these social networking sites are creating a lack of face-to-face human connections. Or how we've become too lazy to pick up the phone. Or even why the first question after meeting someone interesting is, "Do you have a Facebook?" Ask yourself if you would ever keep in touch with even half of the people on your friends' list. Yeah, you could spend a lot of time pondering all of this. But here's what's got me stumped, why do I spend time conversing with my roommate on FaceBook, when she's in the next room?



So the question remains, do I need an intervention?



Is it just me?