Facebook is one of the trendiest social networking websites on the planet. Created by Harvard genius Mark Zuckerberg in 2004, it started out as a campus thing but progressively became a worldwide source of communication and entertainment. Up to 2012 it has under gone a lot of transformations and is now offering more features than it ever did before. Now we can create our own pages and promote brands, products, movies, television shows and celebrities. Different websites have their own Facebook icon ‘f’ which can be used to share pictures, tweets, articles and other stuff directly on our Facebook walls. Facebook is what one calls the hub of social networking.

No doubt Facebook is a stroke of genius but excess of everything is bad. Not long after its creation, people began to exploit it by creating fake accounts, starting propagandas against different cultures, creating offensive groups to mock other religions and by posting odious pictures and videos. In 2010 a “Draw Mohammad” contest was held on Facebook which resulted in the ban of Facebook in Pakistan for some time.

For the youth of 21st century social networking is everything. They like to stay connected to their friends and families via different networking websites like Twitter, MySpace and mostly Facebook. For them Facebook is something that they can’t walk away from. Many teens have admitted that they are unquestionably addicted to Facebook. This Facebook fever is so strong that even educated business people to intrigued grandparents has joined the phenomenon. Now when people socialize, instead of asking for each other’s cell numbers they say “Facebook me, okay?”

Facebook is taking over the world and that is no exaggeration. That can easily be seen by the fact that people spend more time on Facebook than actually being involved in any other activity. This is called F.A.D: Facebook Addiction Disorder. People from all around the world are suffering from it yet they don’t comprehend that they are. It is indeed a perilous addiction because once you get addicted, going back is very hard. Majority has claimed that Facebook obsession is worst than smoking addiction. A person suffering from F.A.D spends all the time on his computer checking his notifications, messages and friend requests after every 5 minutes. Sometimes he becomes fretful just because he hasn’t checked his account in an over an hour. That person withdraws himself from normal activities like hanging out with friends, helping around the house, going out on weekends, and eschews the rest of the world. For him Facebook is his new world. For a teenager the situation creates even more problems because this addiction affects his grades, his homework and his life.

Symptoms of F.A.D:
1. * A Facebook addict spends an increasing amount of his time on the site, coming to a stage where he needs it, in order to obtain satisfaction.
2. * A person becomes anxious and stressed easily when he is forbid to use the site.
3. * Instead of socializing in the outside world, an addict likes to socialize on Facebook.
4. * A complete addict even stops answering his phone calls, requesting his friends to contact him on Facebook.
5.
* An addict spends more than five hours on Facebook.

So what can we do about this addiction? I can’t answer for sure but I think our parents can play an imperative role, if well the addicted is still young enough to be influenced by the parents. As for the older people suffering from it, I say if we approach them with care and caution then we might be able to help them. For this purpose their friends can aid them a lot. Facebook addiction is not a bad thing at least when it isn’t taking over your life. But once it does, it creates a perplexity in the mind of the addicted between real life and Facebook life.

Curing it is not easy unless we have the will power to do it. Like all other addictions F.A.D can’t be cured overnight but however if we take a healthy look at our lifestyles then we might be able to tell what went off beam with us. A balanced life is a healthy life, now it’s up to us how we want to live it. Do we want to enjoy the bliss of a normal life or do we want to become anti social loners?
Choose wisely.