Addicted to Facebook: One man's Story

For this I blame Harper. He has tried, since the advent of social networking, to get me involved. I am pretty sure that Friendster was the first one I joined. I would always happily play around for a few weeks and then get bored and move on. I don’t know if it was because the services offered weren’t what I wanted or if it was just that I didn’t care, but I was always able to quit before it became a problem. It always worked out that after a few weeks I thought that they were stupid.

Fast forward seven years to January 2009. Harper and Hiromi came out to check out the stock show, during this visit Harper hooked me up with a new computer. Part of this was getting me and my mom signed up for Facebook. He also took the time to introduce me to Google’s Chrome browser. It was all over.

Since starting on Facebook I have checked it at least once a day and have been able to catch up with a bunch of people I hadn’t seen (and still haven’t) since high school. On top of that I was able to discover the actual date of my ten year reunion. All of these things have been great and it has all been made better by Chrome’s ability to make websites into applications.

Normally I don’t get involved in the browser war. That was until I tried chrome for the second time. i say second time because the first time I downloaded chrome was right at launch and I was not prepared for the awesomeness that it brought to the table.

To start with Chrome has Google search built into the address bar. It works like magic, taking me exactly where I wanted to go even when I don’t realize that I want to go there. Also having one place to type web addresses and searches cleans up the browser getting rid of the annoyance that is toolbars. Secondly I am in love with the non-homepage homepage. Seeing my most visited sites allows for super quick browsing to where I go most often, lessening the time I spend remembering where I want to go. Lastly I am a huge fan of the make it into an application feature. Not only is it lightning fast, it keeps me from getting distracted by the Internet making me ore productive. On top of all that it just looks good.

Back to the real point of this post: my Facebook addiction. I am not sure what Facebook did that is so different then the other sites I have joined, but it is magic. Not only does it have the right amount of updates from my friends but it integrates so easily with twitter, my blog, flickr and etsy. It is a wonderful way to have people follow me.

Another problem that I have with Facebook is Mafia Wars. Who’s idea was that? Making a game that allows me to pretend to be a criminal that is quick easy and doesn’t take that much time out of my day. Damn You! I find that I check Facebook, go do some Mafia jobs and then check Facebook again. This process takes place every hour that I am on a computer.

So thanks Harper for getting me hooked. I assume that Facebook is going to be the gateway drug that leads me to harder social networking like myspace. Please help!