The Wolf Magazine

Issue date: 2/5/10 Section: On the Radar

Media Credit: Angie Hernandez

Media Credit: Angie Hernandez

Media Credit: Angie Hernandez

Media Credit: Angie Hernandez

It’s Monday morning, and Randy Roebuck is stumbling out of bed at 7 a.m. to get ready for his 8:30 a.m. class.  The forensic chemistry senior grabs his jacket and books and heads out the door.  He has no time for stops in between his two back-to-back classes.  But once the clock strikes 10:30 a.m., Roebuck makes his way from the Communications/Music Complex to his work-study located in the Academic Resource Center.

There he checks his Loyola e-mail account, and then he logs on to Facebook.  He scans the page looking for the red notification bubble at the bottom of the screen. His profile greets him with a new friend request and an invitation to play Farmville, a farm simulation game available as an application on Facebook.

Roebuck then scrolls down the page to read the statuses his friends have posted.  He then closes the window only to bring it back again 10 minutes later.  He knows nothing has changed, but he continues to check back.  Throughout the day, he will have visited his profile 10 times for a total of 4 hours.       

In the fall of 2006, many of Roebuck’s friends started creating Facebook profiles, he says.  Eager to stay connected with new and old friends, Roebuck decided to create one as well.  Facebook was two years old at the time and Roebuck found it organized and user friendly.  

“I thought it was a good way to stay in [touch] with my friends,” Roebuck says.

While social networking offers tools to get the user’s messages out, it can also start to create an obsession, students say. Some Loyola students have found themselves addicted to sites such as Facebook.

Roebuck uses Facebook to keep up with friends, contact people, and for the daily birthday reminders, he says. But the possibility of addiction never crossed Roebuck’s mind until a friend told Roebuck he was spending too much time checking his profile instead of studying for his finals.

“I’ve become a Facebook addict as a result of not always wanting to do my work,” says Roebuck.
 
Some of his visits span from five minutes to two hours.  Nevertheless, his grades have not suffered due to his addiction, he says.  Despite this, social networking sites have an ugly side, he says.

“All the different applications can cause you to stay on [Facebook] for hours on end.”

The social networking site initially intended for Harvard University has quickly spun into one of the world’s largest social networking sites. According to the social network’s pressroom statistics, Facebook has 350 million active users. 50% of those users log on to Facebook each day.

Despite the technological advances, social networking has drawbacks as well. Social networking sites like Facebook limit in-person communication and make stalking easier. Prospective employers may also use Facebook to conduct informal background checks on applicants, says Lawrence Lewis, assistant professor of psychology.

“University officials and employers have been known to use Facebook for judicial sanctioning, background checks, and general information gathering,” he says.

Social networking addiction has been the subject of books like Nnamdi G. Osuagwu fictional novel, “Facebook Addiction: The Life & Times of Social Networking Addicts.” The book tells the stories of 12 people who have entered a “Social Networking Anonymous.”

“Facebook lacks the physical effects of drugs or alcohol, but seems to create an emotional dependency for some individuals,” says Osuagwu.

Aside from Facebook, many Loyola students have started to use Twitter.  Twitter is a social networking site consisting of status updates shared around the world.  The social networking site doesn’t allow much space to post pictures, hold instant message conversations, or write long biographies. Tweets are limited to 140 characters — approximately 26-29 words.

Though Skype keeps people connected as well, it has a different feature then Facebook or Twitter. Skype users can talk to each other using a web cam.  Many students have started using this type of social network in order to make video calls to family invitations promoting an upcoming show.

Social networking also provides a resource for knowing the news as it happens. Media sources from CNN to The Gambit have Twitter accounts that keep followers posted with up-to-the-minute status updates. 

While there are some advantages to social networking, users should be aware of its addictive potential, Lewis says.

“People, especially students, should be wary of overusing Facebook,” he says.  “If you are losing sleep to log Facebook time, if your real time relationships are suffering because of your virtual ones, or if you are online when you should be studying or writing papers, it is time to take a break.  Limiting Facebook time to perhaps 30-45 minutes a day might be a good practice.  Like many things it is not healthy to overindulge.”

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