Hi, my name is Amy and I am a Facebook addict. I wish Facebook had never existed, that I had never joined. I wish that I could forever delete my profile and never log on again. I wish Mark Zuckerberg had become a lawyer or doctor like other Harvard kids. But, let's be realistic, it's not going to happen.
Before Facebook, I was a print junkie. I religiously read and collected copies of The New Yorker and Reader's Digest. Those were the days when people still read - I mean really read, not just browsed status updates and news feeds, and counted how many 'pokes' they received.
Nostalgia is to be expected since I came of age during a time of word processors and land lines. Back then, reading was not a chore, but entertainment. In those pre-Facebook days, my friends and I made up stories, skipped rocks and rope, rode bikes, painted and sold lemonade.
We as a society owned less, ate less, weighed less and, in many ways, worried less. The world moved slower but I don't feel I missed out on anything, especially friendships. I mean face-to-face friendships where you would meet a friend at a mall and catch up over a coffee. And, over coffee, you'd be focused on your friends and what they were saying instead of snapping pictures of the food with your smartphone and changing your status updates.
One can argue that technology and social media networks have made communication easier. This is true in the same way that the microwave liberated many a housewife. Ease and access to information can be a wonderful thing, but, depending on the attitude and behaviour of the users, there's also a flipside. While many wonderful technologies have surfaced in my lifetime, some habits now associated with them are making communication harder.
As the frenzy over Facebook's anticipated debut on the stock market exchange came and went, here is the reality of what Facebook has wrought upon us as a society. Many young people admit to spending several hours online every day, not to read newspapers, write e-mails to friends and family, or collect information for a project, but to check Facebook, Twitter and play games.