Why is facebook so addicting? While we all know this is true, we hardly every stop to ask why.
The only thing thats clear is that when you know you should be doing work – you end up on facebook. (of course, Im reffering to facebook most often for random reasons, you can substitute it with checking your email, randomly browsing the Internet, watching youtube clips, visiting social bookmarking sites, and i don’t have to tell you that the list goes on and on. But facebook is a good example in this case). So why is browsing the Internet so addicting? Why is it that instead of doing work, programming for example; something that’s lots of fun but hard (usually, or at least at first) to start, we end up going to facebook? An obvious reasoning would be that we are just very curious to see what changed since we last visited (1 min ago) and what your friends posted, updated, and etc, even if you are not very interested. You feel helpless to resist this certain curiosity which forces you to keep checking or else you feel unsatisfied. It becomes a second nature, and you might not even be aware of doing it. The worst part about it is that when you are done somehow so many hours passed, but you didnt even do anything! There must be a reason for this, surly? Maybe understanding this reason would help us think of ways to overcome it?
This does make sense from an evolutionary point of view, however. Imagine that you are a primitive human-being and are in a forest. It is most beneficial for you to know exactly whats going on around you, and keeping track of movements all over the forest will definitely help you survive. This would make sense, all those small updated on the news feed on facebook are like the movement and actions of those around you in a forest. And you feel this great curiosity to keep checking it, which leaves you unsatisfied if you don’t.
This seems like a reasonable reason. However it’s not very clear how to solve it, but knowing the reason might make it easier for us to take action. There is a difference between knowing it, and realizing it.
Why exactly is repetitively spending time on the Internet bad? The obvious reason is that it interferes with studies, work, and everything else. But there is more to it than that. Have you ever noticed how when you are browsing the Internet time passes very quickly? And you always feel like you did not do anything at all….just checked a few websites…and many hours seemed to pass by. This is burning time. I mean, what kind of fun is it, when you spend a huge amount of time doing something which doesn’t give you anything, doesn’t improve you in anyway, and you have no memory of doing it! It significantly shortens a person life, because time spent online passes very quickly. If you try to stop using your computer at all for even a day, you will suddenly notice that you have a great deal of time, perhaps it will be very surprising, and you will actually be able to think of stuff and enjoy living.
These are the reasons as to why i think that spending time online (doing nothing, basically) is very bad, and above i explained a possible reason as to why it might be so addicting.
Tags: addicting, addiction, blogging, burning time, checking email, facebook, interenet, spending time online, waisting time
