Deadly Addiction

I was on my way home when I heard DJ Frankie from Pilihan Radio mentioning about the 10 warning signs of Facebook addiction. So how many of the followings apply to you?

1. Facebook is your home page.

2. You update your status more than twice a day.

3. You have over 500 "friends" half of whom you've never actually met.

4. As soon as you step away from your computer you're on FB on your phone.

5. You are a FB stalker. You qualify as a FB stalker if you
a) click on someone's profile more than once a day even if they haven't messaged or tagged you in a photo.
b) have dragged and dropped more than 3 FB photos (not from your own profile)
c) actually go to a place mentioned on someone's page in hopes of seeing them in real life...creepy!

6. You change your profile picture more than a 12 year-old girl.

7. You have checked your FB page while reading this article.

8. You clean up your "wall" so it looks like you spend less time on FB.

9. You are a member of more than 10 groups and respond to every event invitation "attending" even if you have no intention of going.

10. You change your relationship status just to mess with people

Note: The 10 warning signs are obtained from this website as well.

3 out of 10 for me....so perhaps I am not that addicted...

Who the hell are you?

Lately I have been receiving lots of friend request on Facebook. I added them because I saw that we have many mutual friends, thinking that they might be my friends or someone I know. Then some of the new added friends do not have pictures, or their names are some kind of created fantasy 'glamorous' or unglamourous nicknames.

I thought Facebook is supposed to be used as networking, and is especially very popular in the West. People use FB to search for long lost friends or keep connected with the current friends. That is the reason why people use "real' names or some names that 90% resemble to their real names.

Now look at the FB community once it becomes popular in Asia. All kind of names and I dont even know half of the people there without the real names or pictures.

Lately I have been extremely busy with my work, as evident in my infrequent blogging nowadays. Once I am freer, I have decided to delete all the unknown 'friends'.

You mights say "Who cares!", then I would just have to reply "Who the hell are you?"

Schizophrenia & Family

When a person is judged by his/her action, the reason given is usually the character. So how is the character shaped?

Are we born with it? (nature) or Are we brought up with it (nurture)?

R.D. Laing in his Sanity, Madness and the Family (1970), explains the ideas about the role of family in causing psychological disturbance and schizophrenia.

So do I agree with that? Hmmm, partly.

Case 1
A guy who is self-pity and always avoids meeting people he knows. He is very cautious to have someone close to him, hence he doesnt have any close friends. He has the tendency to feel that he is a failure and everyone looks down on him. As a matter of fact, some people don't even remember who he is.

Case 2
A guy who is always buying the latest gadgets and showing them off to his friends. He likes to make comparisons with his friends and make sure that he 'wins' in every circumstances. At the end of the day, nobody really cares of what he has.

So, these are the two cases at both ends of the scale. By examining them, they both maybe the results of a certain kind of family upbringings.

The first guy is from a broken family and is very conscious about what people think / ask of him and his family.

The second guy comes from a lower socio-economic background and has always be envious of his friends from a higher socio-economic background. Thus when he starts working, the first thing he does is to make sure he 'wins' materialistically.

Do all criminals come from some sort of distorted families? Is schizophrenia a result from an abnormal family? So, are our characters really shaped by FAMILY?