(HOST) Prescribed Facebook as a marketing tool, commentator Deborah Luskin has acquired an unintended addiction.
(LUSKIN) I’m a writer. I spend most work days at home in my pajamas, tapping thoughts into pixils on a screen. The publisher of my new novel explained I could do a great deal of its marketing on-line, too. She instructed me to launch a website, hang out in chat rooms, and start a Facebook account. I thought Facebook was something for my kids’ generation, but sixteen months ago I signed on.
I spent my first eight months alternately amazed and amused by what people were posting for all the world to see. A friend in Cincinnati broadcast her coffee breaks during the day and her wine breaks at night; a Vermont friend recounts his golf exploits, and a friend in Maine posts photos of her kids. I felt like a voyeur, peering into people’s private lives.
Determined to make this work, I started accumulating friends. When they accepted, I checked their list of contacts. Now I felt like a burglar, rifling through other people’s bureau drawers. It took me a year to accumulate my first one hundred friends – but now I’m hooked. In only three months I’ve collected a hundred more, and a month later, I’m closing in on three hundred.
I don’t really have three hundred friends, a fact that hit home when I recently had the awkward experience of running into a Facebook friend I don’t really know. Our children had attended grade school together, so I asked her how hers were, and as soon as I returned home, I looked her up on Facebook. This was the first sign that I’m spending too much time on-line.
There’s no question: Facebook is a great marketing tool. I use it to announce readings and links to reviews. The problem is that I now find myself checking Facebook compulsively. The way an open bag of cookies taunts me to eat "just one more," so Facebook temps me to check for new posts "just once more." I’m impatient with face-to-face conversations – even inattentive, because I’m anxious to check for new messages. Instead of being present in real time, I’m impatient for my virtual reality fix. As soon as I can, I rush to my computer. Once on-line, I pick up a thread and follow it from page to page, often until the order of my day has unraveled.
I’ve been more successful at banishing store-bought cookies from my house than curbing my habit for social networking. I’ve tried turning off the internet while I’m writing, but I need information and email to complete and submit my work. I’ve also tried turning my computer off before dinner. But like a broken cookie that tempts me to get rid of it by eating it, Facebook calls me back after the meal. I tell myself I’m just going to check Facebook once more, but before I know it, the evening has disappeared.