Facebook: the many-eyed monster of our modern social landscape. In today’s society it’s difficult to meet someone that doesn’t maintain his or her own page or at least understand the reference. (But for those under informed souls Facebook is a social networking website created in February, 2004 by then Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg.) The first thing I do when I open my laptop is pull up my Facebook and the tab usually stays open for the duration of my Internet surfing. My smartphone beeps at all hours of the day and night with notifications (mostly game requests from distant relatives). There isn’t a moment of my day when I’m not connected to my Facebook page either actively or passively. I’m not alone in this tendency either. In 2009 a study conducted at the University of Missouri found that 960 of 1,002 participants have a Facebook page and 78% accessed their page at least twice daily (Sheldon 2011).

It hasn’t always been Facebook, the nature of internet fads tends to be that they’re brief and topical. I remember the hay-day of Myspace, the popularity of Xanga and even still today twitter bites at the heels of Facebook’s supremacy. I remember the days when Facebook, like LiveJournal, required an invitation from a current user to join. In some form or another for most of my adolescent and adult life I’ve maintained an Internet presence through some venue of social networking. But the great question remains: why? Why do I devote hours to this virtual world?

I, like many American adolescents, am shackled to my social network presence. I’ve rationalized it in every way: “It’s really for my photography business”, “I just know so many people in different places”, “I just use it for the events, how else would I know what’s going on?”. In spite of all my excuses in the end it seems to all boil down to maintaining my image. I care just as much about my Facebook image and reputation as I do about my real life one, as sad as that may sound. If I meet someone at the beginning of a night out on the town usually by the time I’m home I have a new friend request. Whether we like it or not Facebook has become a part of our culture, and while one can choose not to sign up you’re then choosing not to participate in popular culture.

But is it really all about self-presentation? Can it really be considered a simple tool for social interaction and relationship maintenance? Hogan (2010) has stated that as presenting oneself online differs fundamentally from face-to-face representation in its inability to be chained to a specific space or time that it should be considered more of an open-ended ‘exhibition’; an exhibition orchestrated and organized by a third party “curator” that can shape and ultimately owns the information presented. This theory could explain our culture’s preoccupation with it: all of us are performers continually focused on improving our never-ending performance.

But this neglects a large facet and method of Facebook use, what Seidman (2013) calls “information-seeking” or using Facebook to learn about others. His study suggests that neurotic individuals may use Facebook as a passive way to learn about others, as compared to agreeable and extraverted individuals that use Facebook to supplement active offline relationships. And as Sheldon’s (2011) study found that frequent users of Facebook felt both more connected and more disconnected (“more close to others and more unappreciated by others”) utilizing Facebook as simply an information-mining tool might not be as harmless as it sounds.

Through their four studies Sheldon (2011) found that the presence of feelings of disconnection motivated utilizing Facebook as a coping response. But their data also found that while using Facebook satisfied positive relatedness needs it didn’t solve the underlying real-life social problems that inspired their feelings of disconnection initially and even in some cases exacerbated them. What their study seems to depict is an individual afflicted with disconnected feelings that utilizes a coping mechanism that doesn’t work to solve their issues but simply distracts them from their problems whether or not they’re actively using it to supplement real face-to-face relationships or not.

And now we must all consider, how do we use Facebook? Do we use it or does it use us? Are we simply performing for a wide audience or are we mining information in an effort to cope with feelings of disconnectedness and loneliness in our real-life? These questions boil down to the point of this essay, that Facebook is just a tool. Written and created by a college student just like myself it is exactly what I am capable of making of it. Are we all a little too addicted to Facebook? Probably so, I know for a fact that I am. But considering these factors and the potential harm that it could inflict on me allows me to keep my use in check, to think more carefully before I click that “Login” button and browse through page after page of endless information. I would encourage everyone to do the same.

Sheldon, K. M., Abad, N., & Hinsch, C. (2011). A two-process view of facebook use and relatedness need-satisfaction: Disconnection drives use, and connection rewards it. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100(4), April 2011; 766-775. Retrieved From http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0022407

Seidman, G. (2013). Self-presentation and belonging on Facebook: How personality influences social media use and motivations. Personality and Individual Differences, 54(3), Feb 2013; 402-07. Retrieved From http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886912004916

Hogan, B. (2010). The presentation of self in the age of social media: distinguishing performances and exhibitions online. Bulletin of Science Technology & Society, 30(6): 377–386. Retrieved from http://bst.sagepup.com/content/30/6/377