Facebook Fatigue: There Is Hope

Are you feeling tired or rundown? Lacking the ability to concentrate for extended periods of time? Are you spending less time on the phone with family or hanging out with your neighborhood pals? Do you feel insecure about what friends and colleagues think of you?

Do your spend your nights huddled beneath the covers around a brightly lit display waiting for the next "News Feed" update about what your friends ate for dinner?

If so, you may have a problem. Facebook may have taken over your life.

This is a growing epidemic; the warning signs are easy to spot. Have you ceased using email, and only send and receive Facebook messages? Do you agonize for hours over which of your meticulously cropped headshots is taken at the best angle? Do you have deep existential quandaries over which Bangles album to list in your Favorite Music?

Well, I'm here to tell you there's hope. There is a future without a crippling dependency on Pokes, Profiles, and Wall-to-Wall chatter.

If this sounds like you, please consider joining this important support group. Then do not delay in consulting the 12 Steps to Quitting Facebook.

With hard work and dedication, you too can be free of this scourge of workplace productivity. Remember, you are not alone: even the most hard-core of A-List tech bloggers has been known to succumb to this debilitating condition. This poor soul was forced to "declare Facebook bankruptcy."

"Sure," you might say, "I can relate. But why don't I just join one of the several Facebook Groups that deal with Facebook Addiction?" For example, there is the Facebook Addicts Rehabilitation, er, Facebook Group, which urges users to "Join this group and visit its page often to find support in quitting your Facebook addiction."

A sampling of comments from the group:

"Its awful that I come on to 'confirm' a friend and then over an hour later, I am still looking at this web site! Help!"

"I think I have a serious problem and an intervention may be needed. Someone call the folks at A&E and let them know about me! ;)"

No, the only solution is to quit cold turkey. You can do it. One day at a time.

by Sam Gustin