Facebook Anxiety Disorder (FAD)
Recent conversations have let me to the realization of the existence of a new social/medical disorder that seems to have only recently spread amongst the adult and non-collegiate populations of the world. I’m talking about Facebook Anxiety Disorder, more commonly known as FAD, and it is a serious condition that we need to cure soon! If you think that you or a loved one has FAD, and then please speak to a doctor or a blogger as soon as possible. FAD is treatable, even if there is no cure. To minimize your risk of FAD, please post this blog on your Facebook profile and share it with at least 20 of your Facebook friends…
FAD, simply put is the anxiety related to Facebook. You know that you are exhibiting the symptoms of FAD when you start to ask yourself questions like the following. Why do I care what the heck my high school friends who I haven’t spoken with in 20 years are doing every second of the day? Is everyone else on Facebook at least once an hour except me? Who is this person that just friended me, should I accept their friend request? When did friended become a verb? Will my boss see those drunk pictures from my birthday party? Should I put contact information on my profile? And finally, is there any way to gag myself with this f****** news feed?
If you exhibit any of these symptoms then you have FAD. The root cause of FAD is a genetic resistance to a new definition of the word “privacy”. Privacy has a slowly evolving definition (exhibited by changing contexts in the OED). In recent studies it has been shown that the initial users of Facebook- internet savvy college undergraduates have a different idea of privacy than the social/legal definitions that are currently in the vocabulary of basically everyone else. Those internet savvy college undergraduates participated in “network socialization” meaning that they had a regional view of their Facebook network- their college campus. Indeed, in the initial versions of Facebook only allowed you to be in one network and to join that network you were required to have a campus (.edu) email address. These college students were interested in meeting new friends, finding connections between their existing friends, and figuring out what any one person or group was doing at that specific time to facilitate the interactions of the network. Basically every default application that comes with Facebook is meant to lubricate the social networking of a college campus.
But you, with FAD, are not in a college campus. In fact you are not in a regional network either via geography or time. The result is that your Facebook friends span both time and space and all the social facilitation that was once applicable in a regional setting don’t translate to a global one, and that causes anxiety. While there is no cure, there is a treatment. For college students it was to change their definition of privacy. For you, it needs to be a change in the way you use the privacy settings of Facebook.
Here are two typical responses: friend no one, friend everyone but avoid contact. Here is the thing with Facebook it is a non-intimate social setting. Email, phone, SMS these are all intimate network technologies. Facebook should not be. The first response, friend only those you want to use Facebook is a very good response- but it eliminates the ability for you to contact people you are acquainted with in a non-intimate manner (intimate meaning that you have communication obligations). The second response eliminates all other applications of Facebook. The middle ground is to use privacy settings, groups, and management of applications to make Facebook work for you and therefore eliminate FAD.
This blog is getting long, so I will get into specifics in a later blog. Just know, there is hope for FAD, and I will give you the tools to treat it!
About The Author
Benjamin
Graduate Student and Instructor at NDSU
Other posts byBenjamin
Author's web sitehttp://www.bengfort.com
FAD is a form of society. It can be cured if right steps are taken in time. Deep breathing exercises are excellent for anxiety and many people report positive results from meditation. Some other natural anxiety remedies to look into are St.John’s Wort, SAMe, L-Theanine, and Tryptophan.
Facebook is extremely addictive to the point that you can find yourself thinking about it at work and planning to use it as a networking tool later in the day [to send information and make insightful comments on your friend's walls etc etc etc]. There is a high potential for self-assessment and self surveillance as well as the ability to see what other people are up to. it’s sometimes good, sometimes unhealthy, but one of the best tools around for this sort of communication. adding strangers is not a wise idea. it’s great to catch up with people you don’t see all the time, and sometimes funny to communicate with peope that you do. it can be time-consuming so it’s important to try and be aloof about it. pinch of salt.
This is amazing!
Yoga can help with facebook anxiety disorder aka as FAD. Finding balance to our inner being is the key to finding personal happiness. Social networking is the new wave however keeping balance inside our mind, body and spirit is our true identity…Sat Nam
WE ARE ADDICTED TO THE FACEBOOK
Facebook makes me jealous? Why do people have to be competitive? why does it seem so integral to our identity? I can get ignored everywhere else in my life, why does it have to be made public? I regret things I write sometimes, people always try to outdo eachother with quirky observations, trying to outsmart oneanother but also appear nonchalant. You have to give to receive, and I don’t want to suck people’s arses to get some popularity. It stinks. But I still check it 3-4 times a day, “like” things, and purposely look at people’s profiles who I know write the most inane crap just to annoy myself.
Well, many facebook users cannot avoid this kind of disorder..
Just deleted my account today for this reason. A big YES. It definitely does induce stress and anxiety far easier than in the real world.
It is HIGHLY addictive too. You find yourself checking emails every half hour in case you miss someone else’s message or post. Often you would not know this person even if you ran into him or her in the street. Wasted hours fly by. People stay up until all hours of the night, typing things furiously that will only be forgotten a few minutes or hours later and inevitably vanish forever into the archives of cyberspace. Typed scribble that achieves nothing or very little in the real world.
So many users abuse other users and often the abuse is emotional and personal. Then there are the friend requests. Someone from high school who you didn’t really like that much… some guy who wants to be your friend yet he lists “Satan Worship” and “Broadway Show Tunes” as his Interests. Relatives, parents, or siblings also request you, and this induces paranoia. Do they just want to spy on you? Should I accept or not accept? You finally decide not to, then guilt sets in. Others who you did accept become total pains and you don’t know how to get rid of them without hurting their feelings, so you end up just ignoring them. This only makes you feel more guilty.
The stress and anxiety eventually leads to depression, especially when you think someone is your so-called virtual friend (or virtual friend of a virtual friend) and they suddenly turn on you and attack your comments over something that is actually rather trivial. Or they Unfriend you over some remark that you thought was harmless. They block you too, so youo have no way of contacting them again to apologize or resolve the misunderstanding amicably.
It becomes a weird little unsettling world of manicured profiles, carefully worded status’s and newsfeeds.
Now Facebook has added Timelines, which have created more frustration in users, leading to more stress and anxiety.
My advice, if you start to feel stressed on there, even in the slightest, delete your account immediately and go outside. Meet real people in real situations. Walk to a friend’s or relative’s place in the sunshine and fresh air. Go see a relaxing movie. Smell a flower in the garden, in fact do some gardening. Watch a butterfly and bird take straw into a tree and build a nest. Marvel at life away from your computer screen. Pick up the phone and call someone who you actually do know.
Resist the urge to go back online to post just one more cool or smart or irrelevant comment. You will thank yourself in the long run if you kick the habit for good.
I joined FB back in 2009, stayed a few months & then deactivated my acct. Last year, I went back & for the most part it has been more positive (love the “hide” button). However, I am probably going to deactivate again soon. I find myself obsessing/worrying about folks who put very personal info. on there. It isn’t as if I shouldn’t be concerned about others, but I don’t think I should take on their problems as if they are my own. I suppose I have a type of personality that doesn’t deal with the nature of FB very well.
Okay…….. I feel like such a loser sometimes after being on Facebook! I see all these people going out and having fun, tagging each other in pics, getting a lot of ‘likes’, etc. That sounds soooooo ridiculous what I just typed! Geeeeze. However, I can see where certain people will ‘like’ other pictures, then I post a pic within minutes and don’t get those same likes………..ha. Understand? It bothers me. Then, when I do post a pic or post and most of the people commenting or liking it are people I never even talk with, and my ‘so-called’ closer friends don’t comment, it upsets me. I sometimes wish Facebook just never existed. It feels more like a competition than a way to keep in touch………
I can relate to the FAD theory. Luckily for me I’ve never been caught up in it like some of my long-lost friends who seem to be weirdly addicted to it.