Facebook-Induced ADHD

This post will make my mother anxious. I will go ahead and write it anyway because I am always assuming she is not/should not/has no business reading my blog. Did you know I never acknowledged it's existence with her even when she talks to me about it? Haha. Anyway:

Let's be honest here, Facebook eats a good two hours of my life away everyday. It's the same for everyone, especially here in KTJ where the Facebook culture means getting responses 38 seconds later since everyone is just always on Facebook. I'm also sure Facebook HQ has some outstanding time-spent-on-website statistics that makes them feel guilty. Truth to be told, Facebook has sometimes made me feel like I have an attention deficit disorder.

I sat down last night to study, after having checked Facebook and decided to start some C4 work; only to find that after half a sub-question my hand itched to grab the mouse. Then I realised I had not even done one question yet, so I stopped myself. And this happens all the time. This is by no means a recent development; the urge to compulsively check the news feed has plagued me for as long as I can remember. It is a hindrance but it did not seem to really affect my grades despite making my studies inefficient. This attention struggle is not only between work and Facebook but also of course includes MSN, Youtube, Wikipedia, Google Talk and now Blogspot! Still, Facebook is the biggest thief of time. More often than not do I scroll through the Facebook news feed that shows me everything I've seen already, and I would repeat the process again regardless of any updates.

The problem is how pathetic it seems. A vibrant social life on Facebook isn't a social life. If anything, that time would be better spent hanging out in real life, not cyber space. I am not saying that Facebook should be done away with. It really is indispensable for helping people keep connections with others and for holding events. It is just that, any time spent unnecessarily on Facebook could be more productive, especially if it involved checking obsessively for updates that aren't there.

Many have gone about deactivating their account in a bid to curb their compulsion. I really don't think that is a sensible thing to do. It only shows a lack of self-discipline and it doesn't quite make sense to cut off from practical usage of Facebook.  So why deactivate it?

Instead of deactivation as an option to salvage my C4, I have decided instead to exercise some self-discipline! From the 23rd of January and indefinitely onwards the following will be set:

Ground rules
I may only check Facebook in the following circumstance:

1. Lunch break (12.30 -2.00p.m.)
2. At the end of a days worth of class
3. After dinner before prep (7.00 -7.45p.m.)
4. Just before I go to bed
5. I desperately need to contact someone or vice versa

In any of those cases, browsing must be contiguous and for a maximum of 10 minutes. 

Sounds good? You should scold me if you catch me on Facebook outside of these times.

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And if you did read all that, thanks for reading my first entirely-worded post. 

For irony's sake, there's a like button at the bottom of this post too! 

I'm really interested to know this: Tell me how much Facebook eats away your time and whether you find it a problem; in the comments section.