ADDICTIONS

When we hear the word „addiction“, we mostly imagine drugs, ciggarettes or an alcohol.

The most of us think how terrible is it to see somebody being addicted to smoking or drinking.

Those people might be addicted as well even though they don’t realise it.

They don’t seem to be.

But they are...

... addicted to something different.

Facebook was founded by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg in the 2004 under its original name TheFacebook.com. The day when Facebook was born had more than 800 people registered in less than 24 hours.

At the ned of the year, Facebook reached one million registered users.

In 2006, they reached 12 million active users. In 2011, it was 800 million.

Being addicted to Facebook is now a medical diagnosis (Facebook addiction disorder), as it’s nothing unusual these days.

In 2004, during his days at thecollege, Mark Zuckerberg wasasked by his classmates, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss tohelp them with their project,an exclusive social network for Harvard students. Markaccepted their offer and beganworking on the website. Hehowever later realised he isable to finish and run it withoutWinklevoss’s, so he asked his friend Eduardo Saverin to help him financing TheFacebook. Saverin agreed and TheFacebook was founded. Later the name was changed to ‘Facebook’, as Mark’s later partner, Sean Parker, suggested to leave ‘The’ from its name.

Since then, a lot of things in the world had changed. Poor Harvard student is now the youngest billionaire, Facebook is one of the most popular websited in the world with its 800 million users and more than 250 million pictures uploaded every day.

Currently, over 350 million people are suffering of Facebook addiction disorder.

What does it mean?

• Being addicted like this technically means the addicted people are afraid of logging out of Facebook, shutting down the computer or just walk away from it for a few minutes, as they might ‘miss something’.

• The addicted people feel they have to share their opinions, states and every single step they do into a Facebook status.

• They also add random strangers into their Facebook as friends and even though they might start chatting in the future (which is mostly unlikely), they most likely never meet.

• Spending 5-7 hours in front of a computer screen is nothing unusual for Facebook-addicted people. So is the amount of photos, videos and statuses they share daily.

Let’s be fair, Facebook is not the only social network on the Internet. There were many social networks before and after the Facebook was founded.

The most popular ones are:

• MySpace – mother of social networking websites, one of the earliest modern social networks on the Internet.

• Twitter – Twitter was born just a year after Facebook and even though the structure of this Social Network is very simple, activity of Twitters’ users is incredible and still raising.

• Tumblr – classical microblogging network.

• LinkedIn – a network mostly for business and professional networking.

• Qzone – is a social network for Chinese-speaking users and people living in China.

• Habbo – social networking website aimed for teenagers by its look and content. Founded in 2000.

Being addicted to social networks or the computer itself doesn’t mean the addicted person is sitting behind the screen way too often. There’s much more trouble behind this.

• At first, the person might be shy which magically changes once the person is back home, safe behind his computer.

• Second, the addicted people are rather chatting over the Facebook than going out and meeting in personal somewhere outside.

• Third, some people are very angry and even agressive when they are forced to leave the computer.

Speaking of shyness... There is also a problem with people who are extremely social, which means they are taking photos of themselves way too often, uploading it on the website and waiting for the amount of ‘likes’ they are going to receive.This is technically the sense of their life.

Some people are even that much addicted they access the Facebook

using their mobile phone, if theyare currently in school or just can’t

access their computer for somereason. Programmers working on

social networks knew what are theydoing and now, once you have an

account on Facebook, you’re unableto delete it. You will stay in the

database forever.

Think twice before registering a Facebook account. It is not as useful as you think.

Vypracoval: Viktor Paulik, 2.C.