Twelve Steps Guidelines for Facebook Addicts Like Me
1. Don’t stop in the middle of a task to check Facebook. Wait until you’re done with a task, then check Facebook.
2. Figure out how many times a day you check Facebook. Then decide on an upper limit (like once an hour or ten times a day), and don’t check it any more often than that.
3. Go on a Facebook fast for a length of time that makes sense to you (a day, a week, a month). Can you do it?
4. If you are hyper-aware to notifications from Facebook, don’t just turn off the sound on your phone - turn your phone off. That way, it won’t even vibrate and break your concentration on whatever you are doing. Or go somewhere and don’t bring your phone with you at all!
5. It’s OK to use Facebook as a way of interacting with people - but not to the exclusion or inhibition of your interactions with people in real life. Every now and then, make a point of keeping in contact with the people in your life who don’t have Facebook accounts (there are more of them than you remember!).
6. Are you getting as much (information, emotions, etc) from Facebook as you are putting in? If not, adjust the balance.
7. Is Facebook preventing you from interacting enough with your spouse and kids? (Define “enough” any way that makes sense to you.) If it is, then take a break from Facebook.
8. How necessary is it to multitask? Do you need to be Facebooking while walking around? Or would it be nicer to listen to the birds sing, watch the flowers bloom, feel the gentle breeze on your face, and not run into people walking the opposite direction on the sidewalk?
9. Just because you have sent someone a message on Facebook Messenger, it doesn’t mean you have to obsessively check Facebook even more often than usual until the point when they respond.
10. Sometimes it’s better not to be posting pictures to Facebook at the very moment you are doing an activity. You can wait and post them later, when you get home from the activity, and enjoy looking them over before sharing them with the entire rest of the world.
11. Don’t check Facebook while you’re at work. Even if your coworkers are checking it while they’re at work, too, and nobody is really getting in trouble for it. Walk across the hallway to talk to your coworker, rather than tagging them in a cute post on Facebook!
12. If you pick up your phone to do something specific, like check the weather forecast or enter an appointment in the calendar, resist the urge to check Facebook just because you have the phone turned on and in your hand.
Bonus: It’s OK to struggle and have setbacks with your Facebook addiction. While in the process of writing this list, I have violated most of these guidelines.
2. Figure out how many times a day you check Facebook. Then decide on an upper limit (like once an hour or ten times a day), and don’t check it any more often than that.
3. Go on a Facebook fast for a length of time that makes sense to you (a day, a week, a month). Can you do it?
4. If you are hyper-aware to notifications from Facebook, don’t just turn off the sound on your phone - turn your phone off. That way, it won’t even vibrate and break your concentration on whatever you are doing. Or go somewhere and don’t bring your phone with you at all!
5. It’s OK to use Facebook as a way of interacting with people - but not to the exclusion or inhibition of your interactions with people in real life. Every now and then, make a point of keeping in contact with the people in your life who don’t have Facebook accounts (there are more of them than you remember!).
6. Are you getting as much (information, emotions, etc) from Facebook as you are putting in? If not, adjust the balance.
7. Is Facebook preventing you from interacting enough with your spouse and kids? (Define “enough” any way that makes sense to you.) If it is, then take a break from Facebook.
8. How necessary is it to multitask? Do you need to be Facebooking while walking around? Or would it be nicer to listen to the birds sing, watch the flowers bloom, feel the gentle breeze on your face, and not run into people walking the opposite direction on the sidewalk?
9. Just because you have sent someone a message on Facebook Messenger, it doesn’t mean you have to obsessively check Facebook even more often than usual until the point when they respond.
10. Sometimes it’s better not to be posting pictures to Facebook at the very moment you are doing an activity. You can wait and post them later, when you get home from the activity, and enjoy looking them over before sharing them with the entire rest of the world.
11. Don’t check Facebook while you’re at work. Even if your coworkers are checking it while they’re at work, too, and nobody is really getting in trouble for it. Walk across the hallway to talk to your coworker, rather than tagging them in a cute post on Facebook!
12. If you pick up your phone to do something specific, like check the weather forecast or enter an appointment in the calendar, resist the urge to check Facebook just because you have the phone turned on and in your hand.
Bonus: It’s OK to struggle and have setbacks with your Facebook addiction. While in the process of writing this list, I have violated most of these guidelines.