Regular users of the social networking site “Facebook” report that they are becoming so habituated to clicking on buttons labelled “Like” or “Comment” that they are now looking for them during their increasingly rare real life conversations with actual people. Self Confessed Facebook junkie Julie Brown confessed that if someone says something funny at work she bellows “Like” across the workplace. “It’s particularly embarrassing for me because I work in the reading room of the British Library” she explained.
Other avid Facebook users report having accidently “Shared” a comment passed on to them by a friend, resulting in one man at a family wedding shouting to the rest of the room “John via Brian, the Bridesmaid has a nice ass”, and later passing on the web address of a Youtube post showing a film of a cat playing the piano. As the evening wore on, John’s request to “Poke” the bridesmaid was rebuffed with a sharp slap on the face. “That doesn’t usually happen online” said a red cheeked John, “The worst that can happen is that you get ignored”. Using the phrase “Unfollow post” in mid conversation just as the Groom's father was explaining the finer points of his job as an actuary has also ensured that John will not be invited to any future family events.
John also confessed that his attempts to send virtual, and therefore nonexistent, gifts to the bride and groom and virtual drinks to people who had included him in real rounds all night had gone awry, and that by the end of the night he had been “unfriended” by a few people. “I had hoped to pick up a few more friends by carrying around a large display board covered with photo’s of people I know, and suggesting to people that they had a mutual friend with one or other of them, but mostly people just said I was either ‘sad’ or ‘gone wrong’”.
Help is at hand for sufferers of Facebook Syndrome, as they have recently formed a group on Facebook where they can discuss their problems and provide mutual support. Both John and Julie have both recently changed their relationship status to “In a relationship”, although they admit that they have never met each other and like it that way.
