I’m addicted to Facebook. It’s not uncommon for me tie a piece of elastic around my arm and shoot up a dose of the online social network eleven or twelves times a day.
Even when I’m not actively stalking someone or randomly updating my status, Facebook is constantly idle in the background, ready for someone to start up a Facebook Chat conversation.
There are now 6.7 million Australians on Facebook, although you’ll have to take my word on that. I’m just a blogger and not a real journalist so I didn’t do any research on that statistic, I just asked Twitter.
Anyway, by the time you take out the old people unfamiliar with this internet fad and the youngens still kicking a footy around in the backyard and that leaves just about everyone else. While there might be a couple of people still stuck on MySpace and some Gen X’s who still think I actually check the mailbox not on Facebook, almost my entire social network is.
And that’s why I’m addicted. Because almost every single one of my social interactions somehow involves Facebook. If a mate feels like beers at a pub tonight, he’ll drop a comment on my wall to see if I’m interested. Someone else losses their phone, they update their status asking for peoples’ numbers. Bored at work, someone else will start up a conversation to keep them from stabbing the next custumer that walks in. The list goes on and Facebook’s uses have pretty much embeded themselves in nearly every aspect of my life.
I’ve got friends without accounts who have missed out on parties because invitations were sent out purely as a Facebook event. Likewise, last weekend I missed a massive 21st because it wasn’t on Facebook. I lost the invite I was handed at uni one day and because it wasn’t in my Facebook calendar I forgot about it.
I’ve heard one story, where a girl found her dream home but the real estate agent said she had only a day to organise the money otherwise he’d have to give it to another buyer. She jumped on his profile, saw they had a friend in common and turns out the two guys were best mates. She got an extra week and happily purchased the house.
Birthdays are another big one. And for the past two years I haven’t missed a single one. Except of course for those people who aren’t on Facebook, which for me is most of the family… who tend to be the most important when it comes to remembering birthdays…
Anyway, to test the reliance me and my generation have placed on Facebook, I decided to conduct some “market research”, which was really just another reason to spend some more time on one of my favourite websites. Two months before my birthday, I changed the date to show up a month earlier than it should have to see how many of my friends knew the actual date of my birth. I realised later that not only had I crossed the line but had actually taken a few steps back, run and leaped over it. But you knew marketers had no ethics already, right?
Turns out, none of friends knew when my real birthday was. My wall flooded with the standard comments, a couple of people sent through an sms and one unfortunate friend even bought me a beer or seven. Needless to say, most of my friends weren’t overly happy when my real birthday rolled around a month later. Free beer aside, I think my Facebook friend count dropped a little that day.
But the point is, my generation is addicted to Facebook. But unlike the pills, lines and other hard drugs my friends do, this addiction isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s embedded itself into our lives for a reason; it’s useful. Facebook is more effective and more efficient, and not just a tool of communication. Facebook is no longer just about pointlessly poking a friend you tracked down from Grade 4. But if it turns out you two get along really well, at least you’ll remember their birthday.
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