how facebook has turned my life into a serial novella...

The social app Facebook seriously brings out the worst in me. Since I joined Facebook, I've had a totally conflicted and bipolar relationship with the site, and I've been obsessed from the start.

Which is the result the developers were probably hoping for.

But the reasons I'm addicted to FB are similar to the reasons why I comb through the front photo section of People magazine while waiting in line at the supermarket. Or why I read those juicy Phillipa Gregory novels in one or two sittings, eschewing sleep or reason.

FB is incredibly entertaining. I used to rationalize that is was a useful networking tool and that my time spent on it would be somewhat valuable.

When I joined, I added everyone I knew and then wasted countless hours combing networks for not only people in my life who I wish I had more time to keep in touch with, but also those people I'd lost touch with over the years. It was so exciting to meet up with people I never expected to talk to again, like my first best friend from Huntington Beach who lived a few doors down from us, but then I moved away when we were eight and you know how those things go. And how great to catch up with friends from high school, college, or various other periods of my past who I'd completely lost over time. And then how completely odd to see their profile albums filled with kids and spouses and completely new lives. It's like finding a forgotten chapter to your favorite serial novel.

But then there were the odd events. At first when I got the email apology from a college boyfriend who'd dropped me like a hot potato for seemingly no reason, I felt totally redeemed. What a completely civilized world this was to receive an apology from a guy who'd hurt me more than fifteen years ago, and then could apologize rather articulately about it once he'd grown up. We became "friends" again.

Here is a relationship that in our modern world rarely exists, and probably would not naturally exist without a social network like Facebook. It's absolutely exciting to to be able to find anyone again so easily.

But what do I do with this? I'm a mother of three, married, barely balancing work and life and the purgatory that is my laundry pile. How the hell am I supposed to balance 203 friends on Facebook?

Now granted, FB gives me a chance to keep up with friends that I don't have time to see. I know when Kim needs a run, when Ben has shot too many Nerf arrows at his mom, and I get to see all the political musings of my friends in their status reports. I check all of these WAY TOO OFTEN. And with cool little mobile apps, I can post photos and my own status reports to my own profile whenever I want. In fact, there have been days when I've had FB in the back of my mind all day long. I find myself thinking about how I can turn funny things that happen throughout the day into FB status statements. I wonder who has updated their own profiles.

In fact, I'm wondering right now if anyone has posted any new photos...

I've been a proud abstainer of Twitter because with the blog, I feel like I spend too much time thinking about my status, but FB seriously has stepped in where Twitter has been pushed out. And I gave up Second Life (yeah, I really don't want to talk about how lame I am so hush up now) because it seriously sucked up hours of my life and spit them out into the ethers.

So now I have to figure out how to control Facebook, especially since it's got too tight a hold on me now to give up completely. I need to control my Facebook Addiction. My name is Amy and I'm addicted to Facebook.

Facebook has also introduced new social dilemmas into our life networks (one of which includes using the term "life networks"). For example, I found an old college friend through search during a massive procrastination session. There were a few people in the results with his exact name, but while looking through his friend list, I recognized a mutual friend so I added him as my friend.

A couple of days later, he accepted my friend request. Woohoo! But when I looked at his profile photo, I saw that he looked very different. He'd gained weight and his hair color had lightened and his eyes had gone blue. He was now single and living in another country. He had glasses now and his childrens' names had changed. Oh wait... Hmmm...

So what do I do now? How do I break up with this friend who really isn't my friend?

I even find myself following his status reports. He enjoyed his vacation, his kids are doing well, enjoying school. But um, I don't know this guy from Adam. Is it completely rude to delete his friend status? Will he be offended?

I foresee future studies and seminars about managing your Facebook accounts in the same way they exist for managing your Outlook boxes. Set aside a certain time of day, only allow yourself an allotted amount of time, schedule some Facebook time on your calendar, etc.

Not a bad idea... But I wonder what Dan and Becky are doing right now...