Hi, my name is Lina Chung, and I’m a Facebook addict.
I am the student who shamefully exploits UCLA’s campus-wide wireless Internet to access Facebook’s magnificence during lecture. I am the friend who leaves you wall posts during wee hours of the morning.
And, three weeks ago I gave it all up by deactivating my Facebook account in preparation for finals week.
This self-experiment started easily enough. I enlisted the help of my friend Stephanie Tran, a first-year English student. She graciously deactivated my account, knowing that my willpower alone was too feeble to withstand the Facebook gods ““ Facebook chief executive, 23-year-old Mark Zuckerberg and his team of blogosphere techies.
Out of sight, out of mind.
So, three weeks Facebook-clean, I now recount my continuing blogosphere rehab through the five stages of Facebook fast.
1. Denial: Admitting I had a Facebook problem was the hardest step. I originally joined Facebook the summer before I started at UCLA, as a novice, once-a-week user. But after the creation of the News Feed feature last September, I transformed into a full-scale, daily Facebook addict.
News Feed grew into a modern-day oracle, answering some of life’s most pressing questions ““ Who uploaded a new profile picture? Who joined the “Pinkberry Lovers” group? ““ and I, like Odysseus, was subject to this oracle’s every whim. Despite the very evident signs of my Facebook obsession ““ including constant abuse of the Wall-to-Wall feature ““ I was in denial that I had a real problem. But after checking the history on my Internet browser, I decided to come clean.
2. Withdrawal: During my first few days without Facebook, I found myself at the Web site, only to stare longingly at the log-in page, pondering what brilliance lay inside. Facebook withdrawal went beyond nostalgia and turned into a test of self-sacrifice.
I soon felt the effects of losing my Facebook account, as finding classmates’ contact information and remembering friends’ birthdays became a nightmare. The withdrawal stage only helped me realize the importance of Facebook beyond simple socializing.
3. Isolation: My friends’ immediate reactions to my Facebook fast began with one question: Why?
Why would I let myself go through such a tortuous process and deprive myself of a college student’s social networking dream?
Some, not knowing I deactivated my account, accused me of the biggest Facebook faux pas: unfriending. I was forced to quickly defend myself ““ I had better Internet etiquette than that! But it was my friends’ reactions combined with the introduction of new Facebook programs, such as iLike, that made me feel completely cut off from the blogosphere.
4. Acceptance: As my third week of fasting draws to a close, I’ve come to accept my existence without Facebook. Perhaps I should define this phase more as “tolerance” rather than “acceptance,” since I still grumble when I hear a friend speak of Facebook poking or a new Graffiti wall post.
But I’ve managed my sanity by channeling my free time into more productive outlets ““ studying or obsessively checking my e-mail. Of course that leads me into the final stage, which I have yet to reach.
5. Nirvana: You hear about those people. Those lone souls who “just never got into Facebook.”
They create a modern-day urban legend, and you awe at their resistance to the trend. You wonder what these enlightened beings could be doing with their Facebook-free time. It’s nothing short of meditative.
This last stage of the Facebook fast is the point where I should realize my life is better off without the blogosphere and I direct my energies into a more organic form of communication ““ such as phone calls or AOL Instant Messenger.
But being a true addict at heart, I’m not sure I will ever reach this state ““ only a few spiritually elite do ““ so I choose to hold my breath until the end of my last final, when I can reenter the golden gates of glory and break the chains of my Facebook fast.
If you’ve prayed to Zuckerberg, e-mail Chung at [email protected]. Send general comments to [email protected].