last weekend, I happened to encounter a very unusual experience: I lost the sense of time for a while. I remember going to Facebook to check whether my recent post had caused any attention of my subscribers. It had, so I dropped a couple of replies to their comments and decided to scroll down the timeline a little to see what my reareds had posted since I visited the site (which was just a few hours before). So I started brushing through one post after another and… when I raised my eyes from the page, the clock in the corner of my laptop screen was showing a  time three hours later than I could expect! Previously, I only had such moments a few times, if I was lucky to find an exciting novel, a real page turner, so I would plunge into it and read it till the very last page.

The problem with Facebook, however, is the fact that you can’t come to an end of it, unless you logout by decision of your willpower or delete your account at all. Then I thought, What if my addiction becomes so strong that I won’t have the power of character to step away from the account? I have been wondering, how many people out there are spending a working-day worth of time with Facebook daily? And I gasped in realization: really many, and I even know such people, because every time I log in to my account (which I do a few times a day), I can always see a little sign under their profile photo: “10 new posts” or “8 new posts”.

Well, I need to do something about it, and I know: shifting to Twitter is not an option! 😉 I decided to start monitoring my own Facebook activity, and I have been doing it since the last weekend. Here is my “statistics”: I have three FB accounts and I visit each of them at least 3-4 times a day. I think that I am doing this for my self-marketing, but the truth is: they are not helping me a lot, the efficiency is quite low. Every time I log in to an account, I first of all take a look at my new likes, comments and messages and take care of them. Then, I scroll down the timeline for new information, and If I happen to find something interesting, I grow excited and keep scrolling for more posts and articles.

Interestingly, brushing through Facebook posts is not like doing the same thing on Wikipedia, for example. In Wikipedia, I always search for information, trying to satisfy my informational humger. On Facebook, I scroll down to satisfy my emotional hunger: I look for pictures and cute videos in the first place; I want to see nice stuff; I prefer short texts and excessive illustrations; my eyes desire pleasurable excitement.

I think I will continue making notes about my addiction. Thankfully, so far, I can fight it (at least, I believe that I can!) Let us see what other conclusions this little experiment is going to bring, and for now, here are a few notes I have made about the signs of FB-addiction. You are welcome to check, whether you have them. So far, I have caught myself on the following-

• Using Facebook during hours every day, an ongoing desire to return and check what’s new with my friends;
• Growing excited every time when I see that someone liked my post or sent me a message;
• Tendency to keep scrolling down FB posts to exhaustion, with little to no recollection of what I saw, learned, “liked,” read, or even how much time I spent;
• Pulling up the app during every spare moment, any time I am not required to be in direct contact with other people);
• A frequently reoccuring feeling of emotional tiredness, almost exhaustion;
• A sense of having no “free time”, when I tend to complain to myself about being too busy all the time;
• Decreasing interest for other creative activities and hobbies, which I used to love in the recent past;
• A feeling that my posts may be important to somebody, so they have to be interesting
• Tendency to treat my Facebook friends as seriously as I do with my real life friends, a growing feeling of “responsibility” for being there with them.