Addiction to Facebook

Individual mental and social development is being hampered by Facebook addiction. The entire social fabric has been harmed, as both the elderly and the youth have been identified as victims. Nonetheless, its use has expanded significantly over the last two decades. As a result, the rapid increase in its use can be traced to the widespread use of information and communication technology (Bhandari et al., 2017).
It has been a source of illumination to human cultures for the past fifteen years. For example, it has facilitated the transfer and accessibility of information, digital communication, and interpersonal connections, resulting in the huge dissemination of knowledge.Currently, it has attracted users worldwide, thus, is another significant platform that drives globalization besides technological advancements. Unfortunately, it has resulted into a set of problems including Facebook addiction (Kim et al., 2017).
According to King and Delfabbro (2014) Facebook addiction refers to users' predictive behavior of using it everywhere for a proximate period of forty to eighty hours every week per session with each lasting approximately twenty hours (King & Delfabbro, 2014). Just like any other type of behavioral disorders, Facebook addiction syndrome has adverse effects on the user. As a result, this paper will extensively delve into Facebook addiction with a focus on problems emanating from Facebook enslavement as well as the possible intervention measures.

Symptoms of Facebook addiction

Facebook addict is an individual who finds it difficult being without a phone for an extended period of time. Confronted with this problem, the fanatics will continually find it challenging to part with Facebook (Niculović, Živković, Manasijević & Štrbac, 2012). Facebook addictions exude many symptoms. It is very easy for an individual to tell whether he or she is addicted. For example, the user may start experiencing unusual health conditions and anomalies like regular headaches, persistent drizzling, and other symptoms (Niculović et al., 2012).
Secondly, the addicts are always crying over low phone battery. The Rate of phone usage is high, and hence the battery capacity cannot sustain it. Frequently, you are likely to find them with power banks. Furthermore, addicted drivers or cyclists will always opt to communicate over the phone even while driving on the busy road. Lastly, you are probably to find them operating more than one phone at a time, and the number of contacts cannot be over emphasized (King and Delfabbro, 2014)

Effects of Facebook Addiction: Literature Analysis

First, many marriages have seriously been disrupted by the spouses getting overindulged on Facebook. As a result, many couples have less time to focus on the key family matters as well as failing to accomplish their responsibilities. Evidentially, the pair will have less time for each other, a situation that finally leads to regular misunderstanding and frequent in the family. In certain instances, the couples may forget to pick up children from school and only remember to do so when it is too late (Prabhakaran, Ganjiwale & Nimbalkar, 2016). Dating relationships have failed due to Facebook obsession. Facebook has taken communication online where people reach one another and provide feedbacks over the internet through messages applications on their respective devices. In such scenarios, the addict as noted by (Prabhakaran et al., 2016) forgets to reply their partner's messages as their attention has been drifted to other online charts. The result is that such persons end up breaking their relationship when the individual whose message was not replied feels not valued (Prabhakaran et al., 2016).
Similarly, suspicion rate is likely to be high among couples who are uncertain that the other partner could be dating another person through Facebook. The extreme consequences have been depression among the partners which leads them to commit even suicide due to unfaithfulness. Others are compelled to attempt suicide for feeling rejected while others get distressed for having wasted time on the online dating affairs (Jha et al., 2015)
Secondly, Facebook addiction has negative effects on personal relationship with other people in the society. Unfortunately, users have overlooked the problem due its current popularity. According to Jha et al (2015) fifty-three percent of relationships that failed to work allied to Facebook addiction. For instance, marriages, parent-children relationships, and general close friendships surveyed have failed to work due to addiction. Occasionally, the addicts are generally in solitude most of their time. Owing to the fact that their connection to Facebook is inwardly motivated, the addicts will find it difficult to have free time to interact with other family members or friends.
Facebook users are likely to compromise their privacy while online. People using Facebook are highly vulnerable to privacy breach because once they sign up for an account, their information becomes public. The release of sensitive private data to the general public can negatively impact the use as it may be misused by a third party for criminal offences (Jha et al., 2015).
Furthermore, it has led to children being rebellious to their parents (Bhandari et al., 2017). For instance, children often spend most of time playing online video games with friends or chat with their friends. Majority of them may fail to attend to their assignments and thus makes them to perform poorly in academics. Parents would want their children to avoid the Facebook which they realize to be time-consuming and would do anything necessary to stop them. Under such circumstances, conflicts arise within the family (Bhandari et al., 2017).
Facebook addition has been found to adversely impact individual's social life (Toh, Coenen, Howie & Straker, 2017). It is also hard for such people to be talked to as they may not pay attention to the conversation resulting into a situation that can lead to strong emotions. Additionally, their social life has been affected and most of them feel secluded by fellow students as they spent most of their life on the internet. This has greatly compromised their social life (Toh et al., 2017).
Furthermore, a study conducted by Kim, Laier, Pekal and Brand (2014) indicates that Facebook addiction has adverse effects on health and like style of those individuals who constantly use it. For instance, the addicts habitually become so absorbed to the extent that their eating habits will automatically change. The addicts hardly eat, and if they do, they take very small portions at irregular intervals. Psychological effects include loss of sleep, lack of concentration, low morale, solitude, subjective distress and increased mental arousal (Kim et al., 2014).
Academically, it's likely to affect the learning process as the addicts will frequently find it difficult to balance between learning session and staying online. This has resulted is students' grades dropping as the frequent Facebook use reduces their concentration and retention ability in classrooms (Bhandari et al., 2017).
Facebook addiction interferes with the employees' level of productivity levels. Frequently, Facebook has become one of the current problems facing many business managers. Erden and Hatun (2015) revealed that fifty-five percent of different company executives believed that many employees spent more time on Facebook which is a non-core company work and thereby compromising their efficiency and effectiveness in regard to firms' main activities.

Facebook Addiction Intervention Methods

The intervention approach for any form of addiction behavior mainly involves the application of cognitive behavior therapy. The method has three chief stages which include the problem recognition, cause identification and lastly disorder treatment. The addict is required to go through the entire processes as this will help him or her in identifying Facebook addicting actions which need to be avoided. Afterwards, the therapists will require that the addicts be gradually trained on how to engage other productive activities that will have them fully occupied like games (Erden & Hatun, 2015).

Conclusion

Internet addiction has remained to be social vile that is damaging the society. Its effects are clear crystal as exhibited by those who become it addicts. The aim of this paper was to conduct literature review analysis on internet addiction, its effects and various interventions which can be used to mitigate the consequences. The paper found out that its constant usage has caused addiction to numerous users. Many users have found themselves totally unable to do without it and truly becoming addicted. Student's life was also found to be impacted as their attention is affected by the internet activities. The research found that Marriages and families have experienced breakups due to online flirting by couples.

References

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Jha, R. K., Shah, D. K., Basnet, S., Paudel, K. R., Sah, P., Sah, A. K., & Adhikari, K. (2016). Facebook use and its effects on the life of health science students in a private medical college of Nepal. BMC research notes, 9(1), 378.
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Niculović, M., Živković, D., Manasijević, D., & Štrbac, N. (2012). Monitoring the effect of Internet use on the student's behavior case study: Technical Faculty Bor, University of Belgrade. Educational Technology Research & Development, 60(3), 547-559.
Prabhakaran, M. A., Patel, V. R., Ganjiwale, D. J., & Nimbalkar, M. S. (2016). Factors associated with internet addiction among school-going adolescents in Vadodara. Journal Of Family Medicine & Primary Care, 5(4), 765-969. doi:10.4103/2249-4863.201149.
Toh, S. H., Coenen, P., Howie, E. K., & Straker, L. M. (2017). Associations of mobile touchscreen devices use with musculoskeletal symptoms and exposures: A systematic review. PLoS ONE, 12(8), 1-22. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0181220.