CNN: Facebook is a drug

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/23/ep.facebook.addict/index.html

People become so emotionally involved in facebook that it becomes an obsession. However, does that necessary mean a person is more social by using facebook or is it less social? It claims that people stop being productive in that sense, and that they start absorbing the facebook life, ignoring people around their real lives.

Has this ever been true for other networking sites like MySpace or online MMORPGs like World of Warcraft?

The phenomenon of internet addiction is a real thing, and certainly not limited to facebook. There are actually rehabilitation clinics out there for anything from the internet to Everquest to World of Warcraft.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=5526149&page=1

Obviously there is a kind of spectrum for this sort of thing, with people who hardly use the internet at one end, the 16-hr a day websurfers a the other, and the facebook addicts probably somewhere in the middle.

Despite the ostensibly "social" nature of Facebook and other networking sites such as Twitter, MySpace, etc, it isn't really social interaction. While some people do use them to keep in touch with actual friends and acquaintances when not meeting in person, most users are really just there trying to grab attention from anybody (un)fortunate enough to stumble across their page.

It is also interesting to see how nowadays it's harder to stay away from facebook and succumb to the addiction, while I am nowhere close to dropping out of school and attempting suicide because of facebook I do find myself checking my facebook/email on my iphone more often (sometimes even when i am supposedly hanging out with friends) to the point where i'm not really socializing in social situations and enjoying just the company of my friends. As we use these things more often and have more ways of staying connected (ie. not just while you are in your dorm room in front of your laptop) it becmes harder to stay away from them. I do not remember having this problem with my xanga in 9th grade for what it's worth but the times where different.

Although I agree with the existence of such things as internet addiction, there is also strong evidence to suggest that video games also cause people to be more antisocial in their "real" lives. A quick google search for "video games antisocial behavior" reveals a plethora of results and hundreds of studies done on the subject. Even prestigious organizations like the Wall Street Journal claim that video games and antisocial behavior are correlated.

http://blogs.wsj.com/juggle/2009/01/23/xbox-to-exile-new-study-links-videogames-with-antisocial-behavior/

This article also claims that video games also lead to increased "risky" behavior in teens. So, clearly, there is more than antisocial matters to be fixed. Video game violence is seen as the root of the increased antisocial-ness and "risky" behavior, but some studies, such as the one below show otherwise. Clearly, more research needs to be done in order to figure out the cause of antisocial behavior through video games.

http://www.jyi.org/volumes/volume11/issue2/articles/lee.html

I think that people are becoming way too obsessed with facebook these days, from constantly checking their wall posts, to updating their status from their blackberry, it is just becoming ridiculous. Don't get me wrong, technology is great, and I use Facebook occasionally, but I try to only look at it when someone sends me something (message, invite, whatever), but people who update their status whenever something (read: anything) happens in their lives, it is completely absurd and they are definitely addicted.

You have to ask; what kind of world are we going to be living in when people only communicate through the internet, and face-to-face communication has started to disappear?

True, video games and anti-social behavior are correlated, but if you've ever taken a statistics course, you know that correlation does not necessarily mean causation. It's very easy to argue (and in reality more likely) that people who are inherently antisocial are drawn to excessive video games, not the other way around. This happens because games can provide stimulation and active entertainment without the need to truly interact with other people in a social setting.

Many people would like to argue that video games can transform an otherwise normal individual into a reclusive, non-bathing hermit, but it really isn't so. I know anecdotes really aren't the greatest backup in an argument, but I definitely play more than the average amount of games, and nobody would really describe me as antisocial.