By: Lauren Dixon

November 2009

In a Leader survey of 100 Elmhurst College students, 97 percent believed that college students are developing an addiction to social networks, specifically Facebook and Twitter.

When more than eight billion minutes are spent on Facebook every day, it’s not hard to understand why.

“I definitely think our generation is becoming completely obsessed with Facebook and other social networking sites,” said EC junior Bryan Wysopal. “The sad thing is, we never seem to use these tools for what they’re intended for.”

The intention originally being to connect with family and friends seems to have morphed into an ever-expanding muddle of drunken pictures, fan pages, and goofy yet intuitive tweets.

“People seem to get weirded out if you leave them a long post or something comprised of complete words and sentences,” said Wysopal. “Or … something that doesn’t have anything to do with zombies or vampires.”

Everywhere on campus, in classrooms and labs alike, an overwhelming number of students have their computer moniters and iPhones pulled up to the social sites.

The survey, which was comprised of 41 EC males and 59 females, resulted in only four students that didn’t have either a Facebook or a Twitter account. 14 students had both accounts and 82 just had a Facebook exclusively. EC freshman Katie Ball commented on the amount of facebook usage in the library.

“Whenever I go to the library to print out Chemistry or Biology powerpoint slides. I see about six people on Facebook when there are only about ten people total.”

About 54 percent of the students using Facebook access their profile more than once a day, while only three percent use it less than daily.”

“I use Facebook on a daily basis,” said EC senior Jessica Wilson.
“It doesn’t really impact my day, but I do feel a little out of the loop since so many people use it.”

Wysopal goes on about the same amount.

“I generally go on Facebook at least once a day, but it does not impact me if I go a day or two without.”

A common reason facebook is so addicting is because it’s so easy to do instead of homework.

“Going on Facebook is a getaway from homework,” said Ball. “Which I believe helps make it addicting.”

About 50 percent of active users log onto Facebook daily, according to a listing on their website. It states that about 45 million statuses are updated each day and more than 10 million users become “fans” of pages daily.

With these staggering numbers, and when much of the average American’s day consists of either work or school, it begs the question: when are student’s accessing their accounts?

“I have a tendency to use Facebook during class to check my notifications,” says Wilson.

According to Wilson, in an age where technology rules our daily lives, the progression to reach a level of almost  obsessive behavior is pretty inevitable.

“I don’t think it’s an addiction as much as it is just societal change. Our generation depends greatly on the use of technology and because of this, social networks such as Facebook is a better way to communicate.”

The bottom line is pretty apparent. Use social networking at your own discretion. The number of Facebook junkies and Twitter-ers are climbing, and the addiction might just find you.