Facebook-a-holic, Find the Best Way of Communication

“You can say that I’m Facebook-a-holic. I cannot say like hours, I spend all my day on just Facebook. I turn on the switch of my cell phone and check Facebook as I take classes. Actually when I wake up, I first open my Facebook page on the cell phone before I wash my face and teeth…Sometimes I’m late for my college.” Fast growing social network, Facebook has over 100 million users in the world and the number has still been increasing day by day. Proportionately, the number of Facebook addicts has been rising up too. They use it to a pathological degree. Sometimes they prefer sending and receiving a message on Facebook rather than talking face to face. Nevertheless, some Facebook-a-holic says that it’s “the best way to communicate with people”. Khalid ALamire, a student of Columbia College, started to use this social net work two years ago when he was in Saudi Arabia at his age of 24. Surprisingly, he became addicted after he had come to Vancouver to study Computer Science. “When I was in my country, I used (Facebook) once a week or once a month but, now I’m in Vancouver. I have been living far away from my family for almost two years. So I can go to Facebook and share feelings” said ALamire “also, I made lots of friends from various countries like from Japan, HongKong, and China. Most of them went back to their country, so I don’t have any ways to connect with them except Facebook.” Current world is globalized. Friends not always live in same country or near your house. Especially in Vancouver, one of multicultural cities in the world, you can be acquainted with people from a variety of nations. They often have their own country’s social net work service like mixi (Japanese) and QQ (Chinese), or don’t have even a cell phone, but even so they have a Facebook account. Consequently ALamire takes advantage of the social network to commune together with his friend live abroad. “Last weekend, my Korean friend went back to Korea. Then she had a farewell party and posted it on Facebook and it (the party) was fun. If there wasn’t Facebook, I would have never known that party because she didn’t have cell phone.” He said. The terms like “addict” and “-aholic” sound negative. In fact, technology-based addictions are getting serious as a new addiction problem lately. Video-game addiction, for example, makes a number of Canadian youths stay indoors and tend to withdraw into their shell while, most of Facebook-a-holic became addicted because they are sociable. ALamire is also one of them and he believes that he can learn different cultures with intercultural communication on Facebook. “The most beautiful thing that I found on Facebook is (that) I learned new cultures. When I was in my country, I didn’t know much about China, Japan and this country (Canada). When I opened my Facebook page, my Japanese friend was talking about Chinese New Year, so I searched it on Google and I knew that.” “I feel like I’m bonded to my friends and become closer and together. In the class, we don’t talk too much…On Facebook we can talk and discuss many things that happened in the class, even our feelings and our future.” ALamire’s old friend, Mohammed is also a student in Vancouver and Facebook-a-holic. He says that Facebook is “like society”. Facebook is no longer just one of social networks. There may be pros and cons about Facebook-a-holic but, the definition of our relationship is certainly changing due to the new society.