Facebook causes death?

Which causes more deaths per year, saccharin or Facebook? (Answer below.)

Imagine this. You just broke up with a significant other and upon the next Facebook login you realize you are no longer considered “in a relationship” or “married.” Thus, you change your status to “single.” Nothing out of the ordinary here, right? I’m sure many of you have done this exact thing. Seems pretty innocuous.

Well, not in this day and age. Mr. Wayne Forrester of Croydon, England was on the other end of such a Facebook experience and decided to take things into his own hands. I mean, how dare his soon to be ex-wife tell her friends via Facebook that she and her husband have split.

Hell, we share everything else on there. The idea of personal privacy has certainly changed in the last decade or two. Imagine in 1984 if you were told your friends knew your every move (granted at the time my friends and I thought girls had cooties and Danny White was the best quarterback ever, but just pretend.) Most people would have had two reactions: first that of disbelief, and then of outrage.

“Surely no one has such an ability, and if they did what an affront to personal liberty!”

The cry of the fruition of an Orwellian future would sure bring people to act in outrage. They would rise up against Big Brother and shed their shackles of doublespeak.

Nowadays many of us couldn’t imagine not knowing everything as soon as it happened. With tools like Twitter we’re actually broadcasting, sometimes to complete strangers, our every activity. And, we do it in our own type of doublespeak.

WTF? @TEOTD IMHO we r nutz & F2F comm will die AFDN. But, wca?

You understand it? You know at least half of it I’m sure. Translation: “What the fuck? At the end of the day we are nuts and face-to-face communication will die any fucking day now. But, who cares anyways?”

Yes, these are all accepted, if not commonly used “words” in the new doublespeak. So, have we entered into the beginning phase of Orwell’s futuristic society? If we have, are we the ones to blame? There’s plenty more to talk about regarding privacy and liberty in our present day, but I’ll leave you with this.

Mr. Forrester of Croydon arrived at his old house in the early hours of the morning and, upon entering, attacked his ex Emma with a kitchen knife and a meat cleaver. He stabbed and hacked her to death. His defense? The Facebook posting “ totally devastated and humiliated” him. Unfortunately, this violent act based on on-line communication isn’t an isolated incident.

So, to answer the question, Facebook causes more deaths. Saccharin has never been proven to be a carcinogen and as of 2000 the USDA has proclaimed saccharin as safe.

Next time you reach the keyboard to update your status, pause and think. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/7676285.stm

And you thought you were screwed up

In the March issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry, Dr. Jerald J. Block, M.D. proposes that “Internet Addiction” be added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the official field guide for mental disorders. http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/165/3/306

For all the statistics and details read the short article, but what I want to focus on is the whole idea from the 50,000 foot level. I mean, really, is there anything in this f’ed up world we CAN’T turn into an addiction? Why can’t we just call a spade a spade and say: “Hey, that is f’ed up and you need to take some personal responsibility and control your damn self!” Instead we hand out mental illness badges like the cub scouts hand out the art merit badge: if you can’t get one, seriously, time to reevaluate if being the fry cook might be aiming a little too high for you.

Have we really “advanced” so far in the last 30 years that “Internet Addiction” is really something we need to actively diagnose? For as “addicted” as I am to my blackberry, laptop, the internet, etc. as I am, give me a chance to turn it all off and I’m in heaven. A few years ago I spent 3 weeks backpacking through Peru. Besides the amazing views the greatest part was knowing I wouldn’t hear a cell phone ring in the middle of the Amazon, or that no of keyboards would be heard 14,000 feet above sea level in the middle of the Andes. Is it truly a mental illness if someone doesn’t have enough personal control to put the mouse down and take 5 from playing Halo3? If that’s the case, I must have suffered terribly from “Homework Avoidance Addiction” and never should have been put in the horrible situation where I was asked to actually do homework.

When I was growing up this type of “addiction” was immediately remedied by a parental unit. If you were an adult and suffered from a similar “addiction” it was remedied by a spouse, the bill collector or you were simply dubbed, the lazy a$$hole who couldn’t hold a job. Pretty cut and dry to me.

So despite my ramblings, I come to offer two points. The first point is that by calling such things “mental disorders” simply demeans and trivializes those who truly do suffer from mental illness. As a society, we have already stigmatized mental illness. Until you see someone you care for deal with not only the pressure of the illness, but also the societal stigma surrounding it, I don’t believe you can truly understand how helpless you are to aide them. There are real and powerful illnesses out there that merit the research and treatment dedicated to mental illness and we must avoid trivializing them by adding in slackers and losers. It’s time to draw a line.

Secondly, we once again have given an out to the lazy, lethargic and slothful among us. Our political correctness will be one of the sledge hammers that undo the pillars of society we current reside on.

Stand up, grow up and take accountability for yourself and hold other accountable for themselves.