Here are some statistics for you:

In a month an average person will send eight friend requests, click the like button nine times, become a fan of four pages and a member of thirteen groups. An average person will be invited to three different events and would update their status once a day. An average person would have one-hundred-thirty friends. An average person will spend about fifty-five minutes on this site.

Did you get it? Yes, it’s Facebook. These statistics are provided by, Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook.

Now this is your inner voice speaking, “Wait a minute, that’s not right. On a daily basis I send five friend requests to people I don’t talk to, click the like button about sixteen times, become a fan of thirty-two pages, update my status constantly and invite others to five different events. I spend about half of my free time on Facebook.” That, my friend, is just unhealthy. Don’t worry though, you’re not alone. If True Star Health is correct, forty-eight percent of the nation is right there with you. Hoorah for the disintegration of brain cells and obesity!

“It’s not your fault. It’s mine.” It isn’t Facebook that’s the problem. It’s the users. I admit, I’m a user of Facebook, but I have not been lured by the ridiculous groups and fan pages, the status updating, and the adding of strangers and I hope to remain immune to their charm.

Let’s start with the fan pages. My newsfeed for the past four months has looked like this, “___ and __ other friends became fans of _________.”  It’s not the massive amount of people joining that I have a problem with; it’s the massive amount of people joining groups with no relevant purpose that makes me tick. A few examples are: I Shower Naked - 186,233 fans. Join if you want these stairs in your house! :0 – 1,317,724 fans. (If you’re curious, it’s a staircase with a slide attached). I hate when you look in your closet for clothes and find Narnia instead – 69,814 fans. Why, will you look at that? I never knew you showered with your clothes off, were too lazy to climb a few stairs, and could pull a Lucy Pevensie with your closet! I feel closer to you already. Recently, an outburst of pages like this has been born: “I LOL’d at…” The catch is, in order to get in on the loot, you have to become a fan, and then it will let you in on the joke. The sad part is people actually join. When was the convention where everyone decided to overrule quality for quantity? You obviously made it a point not to invite me.

Then we have the people who update their Facebook status via phone or itouch. There’s nothing wrong with that when you’re not sitting in front of your computer, but is it really necessary to tell us every moment of your life? Most of us don’t care about you getting lost in Costco, buying staples at Staples, or eating waffles while watching Twilight. I’m not stopping you from updating your status, I just think you should be made aware that there’s this magical thing called Twitter. Though I have a hard time understanding why you would willingly allow others to know what you’re doing every minute of your life. I find that somewhat creepy, but that’s just me.

The joy of getting a car for your birthday is now equivalent to the notification of a new friend request. You give yourself your own little drum roll, lick your lips eagerly, and in slow-mo you scroll your mouse to the friends request button and check out who just added you. You see it’s someone from the other side of the country, no mutual friends, no profile picture, no description, nothing. Yet you still add them. Who cares if you don’t know who this person is? You’re one step closer to completing your quest for friend domination. You once had a life outside of Facebook, go back to that.