How Far Would You Go For Facebook?

In a recent Huffington Post article, guests at a luxury hotel indicated that they would rather give up alcohol while on vacation than social networking. Although it may seem ridiculous at first, the study is also a frightening reality check of society's apparent addiction to interacting with others online. Be it through Facebook, twitter, or even e-mail, many people find it difficult to go one day (let alone an entire vacation) without going onto the web and updating their posts or perusing the posts of others.

If membership to a social network was an innocent part of life, then it probably wouldn't be so alarming to me that we all have such a hard time living without it. But the fact is by being on social networking sites you are indirectly allowing companies to market to you. Every time you like a particular page, or post a status about a product, companies use that information to formulate an idea of what your interest might be. As a result, there will be ads on the right hand side of the screen tailored to your interests. Even if you decline to both like pages and posting statuses, they could still market to you based on your age, gender, and other demographics.

At the same time, there is the aspect of the unknown about social networking membership. Who knows who exactly is looking at our information and for what reason. The panoptic nature of the internet means that we can never be certain if forces like the government or our teachers or whomever are actually looking at our pages. Think of the phenomenon of "Facebook creeping". If you participate in the activity, you know that you have probably spent way too long of a time looking at someone's page who you may barely know or not even know at all. Have you ever wondered who "creeps" on your profile or why they would do it? And perhaps the motivations of these unknown entities are less innocent than simply Facebook creeping.

So if by being a part of a social networking site means basically becoming a mine for marketing companies and an object of potentially unwanted attention, why do we participate? Why would people ever subject themselves to such a simultaneously ambiguous and nefarious force? Perhaps we were unaware of these dangers when we first joined our beloved social networking sites. But now, as the Huffington Post article indicates, there may be no turning back. If these sites are actually more addictive then alcohol, can we expect to see an influx of Social Networking Users support groups sometime soon?