Facebook Addiction of Filipino students

Marjorie Ditan is a college student who likes spending most of her time in her Facebook account since the very first time she has known the site. She has benefited a lot from the site and has been already her routine that she cannot go a day with, without opening her account. She has been a Facebook addict for the past two years but has not made a huge effect to her studies and to her social life.

Facebook Addiction of Filipino students

By Caren Rose Magdaong

Marjorie Ditan, Certified Facebook Addict 

            Facebook has been a big trend to Filipinos especially to students. Facebook has already made a huge impact to people even if it just been known to the Philippines for the last two years. It is now the leading social network site in terms of popularity and active users.

            Through a status message in my Facebook account, I was able to discover a girl who has been a Facebook addict since she started using it. She is Marjorie Ditan, a 20-years-old student of La Salle College Antipolo. She is taking-up AB Mass Communication, Major in TV Journalism and is already in her fourth year.

            She is my classmate’s sister. She looks like a Japanese girl who has a gentle personality. She has fair and smooth skin. She is not a tall girl but can project herself as a model.

            She has a lot of hobbies. She likes reading books, writing short stories or poems, watching television, customizing clothes but spend most of her time in using the Facebook site.

            Marjorie started using Facebook since March 2008. She already had been using it for almost two years and five months. She opens her Facebook account depending on her time schedule. During Mondays, Tuesdays Thursdays and Sundays, she uses FB between 1 p.m. to 11 p.m., since she has no classes or sometimes just spend half day to her school. Then during Wednesday and Friday, her account is active between 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. only because her classes start at 3:30 p.m. And on Saturdays, she spends her day on FB during 7 p.m. to 11 p.m.

            “The minimum hours I spend in Facebook site during no classes is 10 hours, and the maximum is 17 hours. I can sometimes spend time in Facebook until 2 a.m., but I don’t stay awake during unholy hour, because it freaks me out.” Marjorie said.

            Marjorie Ditan is a college student who likes spending most of her time in her Facebook account since the very first time she has known the site. She has benefited a lot from the site and has been already her routine that she cannot go a day with, without opening her account. She has been a Facebook addict for the past two years but has not made a huge effect to her studies and to her social life.

            “Facebook really gets me because I can flush out my feelings. But it doesn’t really affect my studies because I am well disciplined and while my Facebook account is open, I do tons of projects and even loads of home works.”

            She already has 200 friends in her site. Marjorie only accepts and adds friends who is she familiar with. But even with the help of the site for communication, she do more than a talk on FB, she still prefers to live among people and socialize with them face to face than in social networks.

            She likes spending time with her family but also do this with some activeness in her FB account. But still, she doesn’t let this social network to weaken her relationship with her family, friends and herself.

            In her FB profile, she usually posts things like skin care, fitness, hair care and other guides or suggestions concerning a person’s health and hygiene. She also uses her account to sell stuffs like bags, accessories and clothes. FB has already been her partner in business. She also like posting suggestions on what clothes to wear, foods that benefits the body and mind, opinions on how to deal with relationships in a family, friends or lover and topics that focuses more on communication and psychological matters. Her statuses are all about relationships and friendships. She always wants to make sense with what she posts.

            FOOPETS APPLICATION is one of her favorite game application in FB that she is so addicted and loyal to.

            She is a certified Facebook addict but she never lets her FB addiction gets her personal social life and ruin her studies. She knows how to balance things and FB is just her hobby when she feels bored or don’t have anything to do.

            This proves that even if FB has been a very well known site to Filipino students, it doesn’t mean that it will already serve as our social interaction among people. Facebook is still just internet operated and personal interaction and real relationships are way better than network conversation and relationships. And addiction to any social network is a normal thing to student to help in stress relieves but should not be the cause of any personal distraction in a person’s life.    

            “Facebook is just a social network!” she said, as her final words as we ended our interview.