Sorry, an error has occurred. We are working on getting this fixed as soon as we can. If these words make your blood boil, if you make mental notes to later ‘de-tag’ photos the moment they are taken, if the word ‘poked’ no longer holds sexual connotations for you, then you may be one of the growing number of us who just can’t break our Facebook addiction. But your impulsive desire to constantly let your friends know What Is On Your Mind will not be new to you. Very few of us are in Facebook Denial. What you may not have realised, however, is the way these sites are moving away from simply governing our friendships, to gradually controlling our whole lives.
AN UPDATE A DAY KEEPS THE DOCTOR AWAY
Or most likely not, it would seem. Lily Allen recently told the world that she had “put [her] Blackberry, laptop and iPod in a box” after her technology obsession began to ruin her life. And she is evidently not alone, as Relate, a Relationship Counselling service, recently found that one client in ten on a single day sought help from them because of problems to do with the internet. For those with busy lives, updating their Tweets and completing work assignments must be done simultaneously, and this process of technology multi-tasking could be putting a worrying strain on our health. It is widely believed by scientists (and busy people!) that using infuriatingly uncooperative technology is a common cause of stress. When stressed the body increases its production of the hormone cortisol, making us more aggressive and impulsive, and even potentially increasing our risk of developing heart disease.
YOUR RELATIONSHIP STATUS HAS CHANGED TO: IT’S COMPLICATED
An altogether different type of heart disease; the changing of the relationship status has become an etiquette minefield. Replacing the ‘how long should I wait before I call?’ dilemma is the, even more complex, ‘which one of us should change our relationship status first?’ conundrum. Claire Suddath wrote in The Times last year that a “Jane Austen of Facebook” is needed to advise us on the nuances of online open and closed relationships. We now seem to consider our own relationships valid only when declared for the world and his dog to see on our profiles. Emily and Michael Weise-King went so far as to change their status from ‘engaged’ to ‘married’ in the middle of their wedding ceremony! The change was made on their matching iPhones at the event in February of last year whilst still in their wedding attire. The ending of a relationship can also be further complicated by Facebook. To break up with someone via a status change is widely deemed to be unacceptable, and yet once the romance has come to an end, both parties will shamelessly race each other home to be the first to declare themselves officially ‘single.’ Denise Knowles, relationship counsellor, says that an obsession with technology can be damaging to relationships because the constant distraction tells your partner that they are not worth your full attention. Similarly, psychiatrist Dr. Edward Hallowell claims that the downside to having “connected so miraculously electronically” is that we have “gradually disconnected emotionally.”
SOMEBODY HAS COMPARED YOU TO ONE OF YOUR OTHER FRIENDS AND FOUND THAT YOU ARE LESS STUDIOUS
Loughborough University reckons it takes, on average, 64 seconds to recover concentration after checking your e-mail/profile/twitter comments. That means that in a twenty-four hour open exam, if you checked your e-mail every ten minutes, you would lose 2.56 hours of valuable essay-writing time just to remembering your train of thought! Furthermore, those of us who believe our witty statuses, erudite tweets and eloquent blogs are improving our (already pretty immaculate) writing style, may be deluded.) Pear Analytics examined 2,000 tweets over two weeks and were able to categorise them into six separate areas. “Pointless babble” came out top with a massive 40% majority. So much for the Twitterati!
YOU HAVE BEEN POKED BY FACEBOOK. POKE BACK?
In 2008 the Collins English Dictionary named “Facebook” its Word of the Year (and yet my Spell-check still insists on peppering this article with its angry red zig-zags). The following year the New Oxford American Dictionary awarded the same accolade to the verb “unfriend.” Barak Obama has a page (over seven million fans). Nicolas Sarkozy has a page (over two hundred thousand fans). Gordon Brown has a page (not quite three thousand fans). There is no doubt that Facebook is in danger of ruling our health, relationships, work, language and even global politics. The question is:
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