Back to Life, Back to Reality: A Week Without Facebook
Last time I posted I reflected on an experience which was intended to be a challenge, 40 minutes of uninterrupted reading. If you thought that might have been difficult, imagine this: a week without Facebook. The challenge was so daunting our professor had mercy on our souls and shortened it to five days.
For some people even that was too long. For me personally, well I barely noticed the difference in my life without Facebook. I only just recently got one for one of the courses I am taking this semester. In fact I’ve only been a Facebook user for 5 weeks and I have more likes (116) than I do friends (47). The week without Facebook was basically going back to my normal life and reality, one that exists without Facebook or any other social network.
I can imagine that the challenge was most legitimately difficult for those who are actively part of a community on Facebook or within Facebook. For these individuals, Facebook (which as a whole is a network and not a community) serves as an online hub for interaction with their online community, whereas for me, Facebook serves as a network where I can easily keep in touch with or reconnect with a few acquaintances and even fewer friends.
The difference between these users and me is well-defined by Stein Gotved in his essay, “The Construction of Cybersocial Reality”, which he pinpoints to be level of complexity and level of commitment.
There is one last category of Facebook users, who were also challenged, but not necessarily with good reason. These are the Facebook addicts. As with any addiction, they probably experienced serious withdrawal and need to start a process of recovery. As I searched for a fitting image to delineate what seemed to be an amusing term “Facebook withdrawal”, I came across a few articles and blog posts about it. Apparently, Facebook addiction is considered a serious condition, and part of a whole of internet addiction disorders :
“A growing body of research in the area of addiction suggests that Internet Addiction Disorder is becoming a real problem, it is a psychophysiological disorder involving tolerance; withdrawal symptoms; affective disturbances; and interruption of social relationships. The most common one is Facebook Addiction Disorder (FAD).”
The class I am taking, which required me to go a week without Facebook, may be comprised of members of all three of the above mentioned groups: “losers” (myself), community users (the best of all Facebook users), and addicts (enough said). The class is also comprised of members between the ages of 18 and 25, which may also have been a factor of the level of difficulty this challenge was meant to present. Are we all a bunch of stereotypical Facebook users?
All in all the experience was more interesting for me to observe than to experience personally.
For another interesting perspective on a similar experience (that might just make you laugh) check out this article from a student at the University of Wisconsin.
