Facebook Addiction Persists

By Calliopi Hadjepeteras

Facebook this, Facebook that. Whether or not you call yourself an avid Facebook user or just someone with an account, chances are you have one.

There are more than 500 million active users on ‘the book.' If Facebook were a country, it would rank third, just behind the People's Republic of China and India — roughly 190 million ahead of the U.S., over 200 million greater than Indonesia and 300 million greater than Brazil.

Sitting in my class, I can't help but be distracted by the girl to my left who is Facebook creeping. Oh, and the guy to my right. And the girl two seats in front of me. Ally's* perusing the latest pictures from the weekend. Ryan* is FB chatting. Meanwhile, Professor Simpson* goes on about energy waste management. Poor guy doesn't know that half the class is more interested in the latest FB status updates than hearing what he has to say about the U.S. losing the equivalent of  two Rhode Islands every year due to development.

Facebook is entertaining. Class is boring. Especially Tuesdays and Thursdays, when class is nearly twice as long, and Facebook makes the time pass a bit faster. No rocket scientist needed there.

And it isn't just at Santa Clara either.

The world spends over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook. There are over 900 million objects that people interact with (pages, groups, events and community pages). That's a lot of zeroes. Not to mention the fact that "Facebooking" and "Facebook creeping" have become near epidemic in college and college classrooms—ironically the place that is meant to prepare us for that crazy thing called ‘reality.'

Perhaps the most disturbing part of it all is that while we recognize that the Facebook obsession is there, we can't control it.

A stroke of the ‘Refresh' button on your Facebook page and you may feel like a celeb in seconds. Three photo "likes," two comments on your status update, one wall post and two pokes. Voila.  Soon you will be getting chased down by the paparazzi.

Let's get real.

"What's changed here is the reach and the speed and the intensity," said Buford Barr, a Marketing and Communications lecturer with decades of experience in communicating with and within Corporate America. Facebook creates an instant form of communication. The speed of Facebook gets us into trouble faster, but it also allows us to make corrections and fixes faster. In terms of how you depict yourself on Facebook, in one moment, you can have total control, but at another moment – boom – you can have none.

Thomas Plante, Professor of Psychology and Director of the Spirituality and Health Institute at Santa Clara University as well as an Adjunct Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine, was recently asked by Santa Clara University to make a Facebook page. "You all live in a Facebook world," he said.

According to Plante, there is an allure to Facebook. His guess as to what drives this allure? We live in a narcissistic culture. "We nurture and support narcissism," he said. "We like to think we are the center of the world, and Facebook sets up a world where we can all project this ‘all about me' mentality."

Facebook transforms us into mini-stars and gives us ‘celeb status,' if you will. We get that rush of being famous, of being forgotten, of being recognized or not, of getting ‘press' in the form of wall posts and comments.

And it's addicting, yes. But is it real? No.

With adolescents using social media more than ever, the latest threat is "Facebook Depression," in which the constant barrage of smiling, happy friend updates amplifies a teen's feelings of inadequacy and feelings of not measuring up. A study published by the American Academy of Pediatrics posits that this new phenomenon of "Facebook Depression" is that kids can become depressed when they compare such metrics as their number of "friends" and "status updates" to those of their peers.

Enter Kathleen Clarke-Pearson, who practices pediatrics in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and is a member of the Academy of Pediatrics.

"Facebook has gained all control," Dr. Pearson said. "Where's the balance?"

Kate Young, a licensed psychologist who received her Ph.D. in Counseling Pyschology from Stanford University, is skilled in working with anxiety, depression, stress, anger, relationship problems, concerns about body image, academic problems, and career choices. She focuses on developing a positive sense of self, assertiveness, effective communication and enhanced performance.

Young sums my findings up nicely: "There's an intensity about Facebook that is very real," she said.

Young sees about 10 students a week. The number of times she has seen Facebook come up with her patients? Every time. And it comes up in a variety of ways. "It's a complicated relationship," she said.

"I don't think Facebook is causing the problem of depression, but it most definitely exacerbates and intensifies it," she said. "If you're depressed, everything you see is colored by the depression, so you go on Facebook and everything makes you feel worse," she said.

For most college students, it's very much about cultivating an image and trying to attract people you want to have like you, gratifying your ego and making you feel more connected.

Combine that with the fact that college is a time when people tend to play with extremes, which becomes evident in Facebook use, and it makes everything worse.

Later, outside Benson center, Briyanka Goyal, a 27-year-old graduate student in the computer science program at Santa Clara University who grew up in India, pulled up a chair.

Goyal shed light on the fact that Facebook can be saddening for her. Coming to the United States has been a transition, and while Facebook has certainly allowed her to stay connected with friends and family across the pond, she always finds herself comparing herself to others—and as a result, falling short. "I have been unable to find employment and am constantly reading status updates of friends who are getting jobs," she said.

If it's not enough for her to deal with the problem in real life, Facebook intensifies it. "It can be suffocating," she said. "That feeling of not measuring up."

Kennon Sheldon, who graduated from Duke University with a BS in psychology, said that "The question of whether Facebook is ‘beneficial' or ‘harmful' after a paradoxical preliminary finding that amount of FB use correlates with both ‘loneliness' and ‘connectedness.' How could it be associated with both of these feelings?"

"Frequent Facebook use is rewarding: it provides some feelings of connection (which helps explain why it is so wildly popular)," said Sheldon.

Hold the phone. These feelings of connection, however, do not actually solve lonely peoples' problems. They get a momentary positive charge (almost like an addiction), but then the real-life loneliness is exacerbated.  

Sheldon  has another study under review showing that when people are forced to stop using Facebook for 48 hours, they get mixed benefits and costs. During the 48 hour period their life satisfaction goes up, negative emotions go down and procrastination and aggression go down. Looks like a good thing.

But, their positive emotions go down. Looks like a bad thing.

So, does Facebook win? Or will we?

Contact Calliopi Hadjepeteras at chadjepeteras@scu.edu.