Copyright
© 2009 by José Cossa
The
book is a timely piece and a very easy read fashioned as a confessional
session. Nnamdi presents the phenomena of Facebook addiction as an issue that
must be acknowledged and confronted by a generation whose social skills are
challenged by advances in technology and its new innovation, social networking.
Prior to delving into the book, I suspected that the creation of a social
network forum to cure an addiction created by social networking was a paradox;
it was as having an Alcoholics Anonymous group meeting in a bar. However, it was
not long before I came across this same claim made by one of the personages’
confession and I realized that part of the problem is that this group could be
made of individuals living many miles apart and a physical meeting impossible
or rather extremely difficult to coordinate and afford; thus, it only makes
sense to create a social network anonymous group in an online forum.
In
recognition of the seriousness of the issue, Osuagwu claims that Facebook is
the heroin of social networking and an epidemic. One of the personages equated
Facebook addiction to nicotine addiction. I concur in that, like any gadget and
computing fad, Facebook seems to contain that addictive ingredient that makes
Pavlov’s dogs look like a joke. Through the narratives of its personages, the
book covers a wide variety of subjects ranging from friendship, dating,
obsession, deception, love, hate, stalking, withdrawal, dependency, and many
others. Some of the symptoms include disconnection from the real world, loss of
perspective on real life responsibilities, neglect of personal life, and
obsession and compulsive behavior.
Although
one cannot generalize that all Facebook users are addicts and that using
Facebook leads to addiction (and Osuagwu does make it a point to remove himself
from such a generalization), the highest merit of the book is in bringing to
surface a phenomena that places a challenge to real life social relationships
that is comparable to a drug addiction. Its limitations lie on the fact that no
contextual framework is provided for readers who are not Facebook users—there
is either an assumption that all readers are knowledgeable of Facebook (perhaps
the target population envisioned by Osuagwu does have such a knowledge, thus
the lack of such a framework) or a critical oversight that excludes those who
are not in the Facebook culture. Interestingly, when I met Nnamdi at a spoken
word and hip hop night at Bus Boys and Poets in Washington, DC—where he
presented some of his well-thought spoken word pieces based on his work “Ice
Cream Melts” and promoted two of his books—one of the first questions he asked
me was whether I had a Facebook account and then went on to suggest that I
create one so I can access socialnetworkingaddiction.com and with some
optimism, I could only imagine that this was, at best, a reflection that the
virtual group that every addict confesses to have saved their life is not an
attempt to ban Facebook or to discourage social networking. I recommend reading
this book. To learn more about this work visit http://www.TheFacebookAddiction.com.
